Son of the Night
by BoOkWoRm88424
Summary: In the years before the Titan war, a traitor threatens New Rome. If the Romans ever hope to stand a chance in their future battles Noah Wood, son of Nox, the godess of the night, must find the defector and expose him for his true self.
1. Chapter 1

Noah laid back in the barracks, taking in the momentary peace of the morning. The moonlight flooded in through the window at the end of the row of beds, comforting him immensely. The sounds of his fellow soldiers rhythmic breathing was the only noise that could be heard throughout the camp. Noah had never needed much sleep. Four to five hours at the most, and he would be set for the day. He had been lying there, in his bed, for about an hour or so this particular morning. Although, he knew that the peace would soon be broken when the wake up horn sounded at five. The boy sighed; he wished that he had more time to just lay there. Once the day started, there would be constant commotion, as the camp scrambled to complete its daily chores. He really disliked commotion.

He closed his eyes and imagined his life six years from now. By then he would have completed his prescribed ten years in the legion, and would be free to go as he pleased. He planned on moving away from here to northern Montana. Montana had a relatively low population density, and he knew that it would be easy to find a nice isolated hill to build his own little log cabin. He'd heard that the nights there were gorgeous, that stars littered the sky like thousands of flashlights shining in the distance, producing a view untouchable by man. Just thinking about it made his heart leap with yearning.

Alas, he'd have to wait. These ten years in the legion were crucial to his survival. How did he expect to survive on his own in the mountains without the proper training first? By the time he finished with the legion, he would be perfectly capable of defeating any monster that dared threatened him. In the meantime, he would simply have to deal with the infernally strict ways of Roman life.

Without warning, a loud trumpet sounded through the din of the night snapping Noah out of his reverie. Suddenly, nine soldiers were jumping out of their beds with startling speed. Kids were slapping purple shirts onto their backs. Hospital corners were carefully being formed on each bed. One boy, Parker, was even smoothing down his hair in an effort to look a bit more put together. Noah, of course, was already dressed and had already made his bed. Thus he was the only one to take his time rising to his feet.

No more than two minutes later was there a creaking sound at the door. Immediately, all ten members of the barracks leaped to their positions in front of their bed, straightening their posture and staring straight ahead of them. A studious looking boy with copper toned hair strode into the room. His cold brown eyes scrutinized each bunk and every soldier as he passed by. Because Noah's bed was the last one in the row, he was the final one to be examined.

"Your sheets are wrinkled Wood," the boy noted in disapproval crossing his two tanned arms. Noah internally cursed himself for being so oblivious. Of course they were wrinkled, he had been lying on the made bed for at least an hour now.

"Sorry Hunter," Noah muttered avoiding eye contact.

"You're sorry?" the other boy cried incredulously, a vicious frown cutting into his face. He swung his long arm out displaying Noah's mishap to the rest of his barrack. "This, folks, is why the Fifth Cohort is no longer the most prestigious in the legion. We are full of first generation demi-gods, and yet we can't even make a bed right. No wonder we lose at everything." Noah suppressed a grimace. Great, he thought to himself, I set him off.

Silence. No one dared to speak for fear of getting in further trouble. Finally, after Hunter had finished checking everyone's face to make sure they had full understanding of his message, he ended the morning chastisement. "Ross you're off of tunnel duty during breakfast, Wood will take your place," he finished declaring Noah's sentence.

Freddy Ross suppressed a triumphant grin from three beds to the left of Noah. Nobody wanted to get stuck on tunnel duty.

"Dismissed," Hunter declared as he turned to go examine the other boy's barracks.

Immediately after their Centurion had exited, the ten boys all let out a deep breath, their soldierly manner dispelling.

"Nice going Noah," the boy across from him muttered.

"Like you haven't done the same Quinn," Noah replied lazily.

"I've never set Hunter off like that," Quinn protested. "Not once."

"He gives you special treatment because you're his brother," Noah accused. The other boy didn't have a retort to that. It was true after all, they both knew it. At the age of fourteen, Quinn was three years younger than his brother and two years younger than Noah. His hair was the same copper color as Hunter's, though it lacked the same orderliness, as it tended to stand up slightly. His limbs were unnaturally skinny and long as he was just reaching that awkward teenage phase. A lyre was burned onto his arm below his SPQR tattoo marking him as the son of Apollo.

"Come on," Quinn said. "I was supposed to be the one out there with Freddy today, so we might as well get to our post now."

The two boys made a quick stop by the armory to quickly slap on the standard legion uniform and pick up weapons before making their way over to the Caldecott Tunnel. The sky was still dark when they made it there taking their positions. Truthfully, Noah didn't mind tunnel duty that much, at least not this early in the morning when he could still get a glimpse of the night sky. Sure it was a little cold, but it was better than getting stuck out there at noon when the California sun bore down on his back making beads of sweat form on his brow.

The two boys stood at the entrance to their camp in silence. It was located in the side of the tunnel, overlooking a busy highway. Cars zoomed by on the road below them giving off a distasteful smell of exhaust. The edge that they were standing on really wasn't that big. It barely had enough space for the two of them to stand there without blocking the entrance. There definitely wasn't room for sitting down on the reddish stone ground, but of course they weren't allowed to relax anyway. Legionnaire rule no. 13: no relaxing on the job. In other words, they stand stick straight at attention for the duration of their watch. Thankfully though, if Noah craned his head slightly to the left he could see out the end of the tunnel to the night sky, so he wasn't completely bored out of his mind standing there.

"Hunter's been getting worse you know," Quinn said after they had been on duty for a while.

"What?" Noah asked as he wasn't paying attention.

"I think the other Centurions are getting to him. I mean, I know that he's always been pushing the whole Fifth Cohort honor thing, but it's been worse recently. You heard him earlier 'we're full of first generation demi-gods. How dare you wrinkle your sheets'," Quinn said changing his voice at the end to mimic his brother.

"You think it's that new kid, Octopus or whatever?" Noah offered.

"Octavian?" Quinn asked considering it. The other week two girls from the Forth Cohort had been on tunnel duty when an eleven year old boy walked straight up to them and demanded entrance to the camp. The two girls had taken him into Praetor Carlton's office and they had talked for a while. Apparently, the kid was a legacy of Apollo and had come with a glowing recommendation from three highly respected prior members of the First Cohort. Now usually the augur would review each new recruit before they got accepted into the legion, but recently the old augur had retired and they had begun the process of electing a new one. Noah was sure that Hunter had secretly hoped it would be him, or at least another one of the six children of Apollo in the Fifth Cohort. Instead the new kid, Octavian, had been selected solely because he had such a good recommendation.

"I'd be upset too if I were Apollo's kid and a legacy, who probably doesn't even know how distantly he is related to Apollo, got to be augur over me," Noah reasoned.

"I guess that makes sense," Quinn muttered. "You know I bet he thinks that he wasn't picked because of our bad luck."

"Probably," Noah agreed. "Maybe you should talk to him about it or something."

Quinn laughed bitterly. "And maybe lightning will strike and Apollo himself will float down and tell the camp all about how Hunter should be augur," he said sarcastically.

Noah sighed and chewed on his lips. The sun was starting to come up now and the first rays of day light were inching over the horizon. If he edged a little further away from the camp entrance, he could see a few faint stars still twinkling dimly, but night was ending and soon they'd be gone.

"Hey is your dad visiting on Friday?" Quinn asked after a moment, changing the topic.

Noah just shrugged. Friday, December 21st was his sixteenth birthday and it was common for a demigod's mortal parent to visit for the occasion. After all, turning sixteen was a big deal in the Roman Republic. The milestone signified another step towards man-hood. Furthermore, a lot of demigods got claimed on their sixteenth birthday. If you weren't claimed by then, odds were you weren't going to get claimed at all. To put it simply, Noah wasn't looking forward to it.

"He really should. I mean they sent him a message and everything right?" Quinn pushed.

"I don't think he'll show. Cities and formal ceremonies aren't really his thing," Noah muttered. He thought of his father, a quiet man who hated settings that involved more than about four people, in the mess hall surrounded by two hundred legionnaires. The notion seemed ridiculous to him. He'd known that he wasn't going to be seeing the man again for a very long time once he'd left his home five years ago. It was a sacrifice he had needed to make. His time as a kid living alone with his father in their old isolated cabin had been some of the happiest times of his life. During the day, he used to help his dad hand carve chairs, tables, and other furniture out of tree trunks in the workshop. Then at night the two would go out to the clearing in their back yard and watch the stars. Of course, no good thing could ever last. It wasn't long before the monsters began to come. It was a wonder both of them had stayed alive until he was twelve. Eventually though, he was forced to leave and make the journey to Lupa and later Camp Jupiter.

The night he left his father had put his hand on his shoulder, his crystal blue eyes tearing up, and told him, "I can't follow you were you're going. The Romans, well, I'm not one of them. They live in a big city with lots of people." Noah had been shocked. He'd never seen his father cry before; he'd always assumed the man was too happy to have the ability.

"Well that's kind of rotten of him," Quinn declared, his brown eyes shining defiantly. Noah knew Quinn was just trying to comfort him, but still the words piqued his anger. His friend simply didn't understand Noah's father. Somehow he knew that if that man showed up here, the city would destroy him.

"Its fine," Noah muttered trying to dismiss the topic. Thankfully, Quinn got the message.

Noah returned his gaze to the horizon. Now the sun was about half way up, night was officially over. Something about the lack of stars in the sky made Noah's heart drop. He much preferred the night sky to the uniform blue of the day.

That's when he saw her. There was a girl limping towards on the side of the street. He tapped Quinn's shoulder and pointed silently. As fast as lightening, his friend's bow was out, and an arrow was pointed at the girl. Noah held his hand up signaling to Quinn that he should wait. The girl was clearly injured. He highly doubted that she could be too much of a threat.

"I'm going to go down there and see what's going on," Noah said drawing his sword. "If I give the signal, shoot." Quinn nodded.

Keeping the sword drawn, Noah carefully made his way down to the high way. Of course, it was just about rush hour right now, so there was an obscene amount of cars speeding down the road, blowing his hair back and making him feel uncomfortable. If one of them spun out, he'd be dead within seconds.

Now that he was closer to the girl, he could make her out in more detail. She had long chocolate brown hair that looked slightly damp from sweat and in some spots blood. Scratches covered her arms, and a deep jagged gash cut down her right cheek. Her right foot seemed to be dangling limply, and every time she tried to put her weight on it she nearly fell down. She wore a faded green tank top, a jacket that was badly torn up, and bloodied jeans. Exhausted green eyes with dark bags underneath bored into him. She didn't seem to have the energy to verbally ask for help, but her eyes begged him for it. Something in his gut told him that this girl wasn't a threat. He had to help her.

Sticking his sword back into its sheath, he hurried to her side. "Put your arm around my shoulder," he instructed her. She wordlessly obeyed, letting him relieve the weight off of her injured foot. Slowly, they made their way back to Quinn, but the girl seemed to be slipping. With each step, it seemed as if he was supporting her more and more, and then her left leg seemed to give out altogether. He grunted with the effort of keeping her from falling.

"Quinn!" he yelled urgently. "She passed out."

Moments later, his friend was there putting her other arm around his shoulder. Between the two of them, they managed to get her off of the highway and through the door to camp.

"Did she say who she was?" Quinn asked breathless with exertion.

"Not a word," Noah responded, glancing down at her dirty face. At least she was still breathing. "They should consider building another bridge a bit closer to the tunnel," he muttered. To get her into the camp they would have to cross the Little Tiber, and of course the nearest bridge was a solid quarter mile away. He grunted as he dipped his shoulder a little more so that he could support her weight a bit better. As he did, he heard the soft noise of something light hitting the grass. A piece of parchment had fallen from her pocket.

"Put her down a second," Noah said and the two boys gently lying her down in the grass. He reached down to pick up the parchment.

He yelped. Suddenly, darkness was surrounding him. The girl disappeared. Quinn disappeared. He was standing in a clearing. No, not just any clearing, it was the one he and his father had spent every night sitting in watching the night.

"Hello my Noah," a voice said from behind him. He spun reaching for his sword, but it wasn't there anymore. A woman sat in the grass gazing up at the moon, a knowing smile playing across her face.

"W-who are you?" Noah stuttered out.

The woman chuckled at him. "Why I am your mother of course," she said. The words hit him in the stomach like a well-placed blow. Immediately, he started to compare their similarities. Most demigods didn't resemble their godly parent that much, especially when they were related to someone like Venus who could change her appearance. Instead demigods would inherit tendencies and abilities, the things that set them apart from normal mortals. But Noah was different. He looked startling like the woman who stood before him. He had never really looked much like his father, with the man's golden locks and bright blue eyes. No, his hair was the color of a starless night sky, his eyes a deep raven black, just like this woman.

He found himself struck speechless. Of course, the first question that popped into his mind was which goddess was this? Yet he found he already knew the answer.

"Nox," he whispered in awe. "Goddess of the night."

She smiled. "Sit with me?" she asked. He obeyed, mindlessly taking a seat in next to her in the grass. The night sky was just as gorgeous as it was when he was little, if not more so. "This is where I first met your father," she said, her eyes dancing with the memories of past events. "He and I were of the same mind you see, both lovers of the dark. You are quite like him you know." Noah felt a knot forming in his stomach. Why was she telling him this?

"You are different than him though too," she continued. "You do not have the same fear, of the city, of people."

"I don't like the city," Noah blurted out resentfully.

Nox's smile widened. "I think you'll find that you don't hate it as much as you think," she said.

"Why's it matter?" he mumbled, unable to hold in his curiosity anymore. He drew his knees into his chest. Being here, in this place, made him feel like a child again. Yet it wasn't the same as it used to be. This hill was characterized as much by its view as it was by his father's presence.

"There is someone in the legion, someone with power. If they are still there in the years to come, all will be lost," Nox said. "You must expose them."

Noah paused, thinking on what she said carefully. "That girl," he began.

"Will help you," Nox answered. "She is a messenger. There is something in her memory, something that she doesn't even realize is there, that will be crucial in finding the defector."

Noah felt a sickening feeling form in his stomach. He knew what his mother was asking of him. She wanted him to become a hero, to save the camp. But he didn't want to be a hero. There was too much pressure that came with it, too much attention.

"Why me?" he asked her.

"Hold out your arm please," Nox said. He obliged giving it to her. She turned it over gently in her hands exposing his SPQR tattoo. Like his friend Quinn, and his Centurion Hunter, and, well, every other kid in the legion, it had the laurel wreath around the letters SPQR and a line for each year he'd spent in the legion. However, unlike the other kids, his was missing the third symbol signifying his godly parent. Nox moved her thumb and pressed hard under his three lines. A burning sensation seared his wrist, and he squeezed his eyes closed against the pain.

"Because you are my son," she said. "And I can trust no one else with the task."

When he opened his eyes again, he was sitting on the grass beside the Little Tiber. Quinn was shaking his shoulder with a worried expression plastered on his face. Noah glanced down at his forearm. Where before there had been nothing but skin, a black crescent moon glowed an irritated red in the sun light.

* * *

A/N So Hi everyone, this is my first fan fiction that I'm writing in the Percy Jackson fandom (I've completed three Harry Potter Fics already). I probably won't be updating on any kind of regular schedule, but hopefully it will be relatively frequently. So tell me what you think of chapter 1, all thoughts and tidbits are greatly appreiciated :)

Also thanks to wyldraven deviantart for the cover of my story


	2. Chapter 2

Noah had never felt more self-conscious in his life than when he'd walked into the daily legion meeting that afternoon. He had arrived early with Quinn, as they usually did, but today they didn't blend into the crowd. Instead, he felt the eyes of the entire camp on his back. It wasn't unusual for a god to claim their kid by burning their mark below the camper's SPQR tattoo. In fact, it was actually quite a common way to do it. The thing was that it wasn't exactly common for a god to claim their demigod children in the legion. Between the multitudes of kids who showed up already aware of who their godly relative was and the number that was simply never claimed, it wasn't exactly a regular occurrence. And of course there was the fact that he was the son of Nox, a goddess who apparently had never once, in the history of demigods, mothered a kid with a mortal man.

As they stood there in the middle of the room he could hear the other kids whispering behind his back. "Did you know that Noah Wood got claimed today?" "Yeah I heard his mom is Nox... NOX." "That's unnatural" "I always knew that guy was weird" "No wonder he's in the Fifth Cohort." Noah hunched his shoulders and did his best to shut out their words. He wanted to leave and run far away. Maybe even back to his old home with his dad. They could sit on the hill like they used to, and Noah could forget his time here like it was a bad dream. He couldn't do that though. Unfortunately, he was stuck here, a freak among outcasts.

"They'll get bored of it by dinner," Quinn assured him, though Noah doubted it.

Noah quickly glanced around the room for a sign of order. It seemed that they had a minute or two before things began. Briefly, he considered telling Quinn about the second half of his vision of his mother. Earlier, when he had first gathered his wits after being claimed, he had hesitated before telling his friend about the task his mother had given him. She did, after all, tell Noah about it privately, and what if Quinn were this hidden threat she had been talking about? Now that the events had settled though, he'd realized what a stupid thought that had been, and had started to feel guilty about keeping secrets. Still, he didn't think now was the time to spill his guts. There were too many people around.

When Hunter and the Cohort's other Centurion, Mia, walked through the door and called everyone to attention, Noah was thankful. It was much harder to stare with everyone in their lines. The legion meetings were highly organized events. From the door to the opposite wall the Cohorts initially lined up in order of number, meaning the Fifth was on the far end. Each Cohort's Centurions would stand at the front of the legionnaires who were organized in lines of five. Those who had been in the legion the longest would stand at the front while the newest members and the _probatio_ would get stuck in the back.

As Noah had been in the legion for three years, he stood towards the back though he wasn't quite in the last row. Quinn, who had arrived before Noah, despite his youth, had been a member for five years, so he stood two rows in front of him, next to Jason Grace. Noah himself was stuck in between Freddy Ross, the eccentric red head that had been relieved from tunnel duty earlier that morning, and Alice Winter, a tragically chatty daughter of Venus. Thankfully, it was required that all campers stay quiet during the proceedings; otherwise, it'd be highly likely that Noah would get his ear talked off.

As the attendance drew to a close, the two praetors, Carlton Fordyce and Leila Adams, arrived. Both were dressed in heavy full armor that was customary for all members of the legion. Carlton was a muscular boy with dark skin and a buzz cut. He was the stricter of the two leaders, as he was quicker to mandate punishments, but he wasn't as skilled as Leila. He was a legacy of Bellona, but the relation was distant enough that he had to rely mostly on learned skill on the battle field. Still, no one was quick to mess with the boy. Now Leila, she was scary. A daughter of Mars, it seemed as if she could do no wrong in close combat. Noah had somehow ended up in a sword fight with her during war games one time, and she'd disarmed him within seconds. To top things off, she was a relatively pretty girl. Even Quinn, who was terrified of her, had admitted it once. Her black hair fell in curls down her shoulders. Though she was a fighter, her figure was as petite as a Barbie doll. There was a rumor going around that she and Carlton were dating.

"Attention," Carlton said in the deep voice of a military commander. Each Centurion turned to face the praetors as the proceedings began.

"Colors!" a new voice shouted from the corner of the room. Noah looked over to find a scrawny kid, no older than twelve, maybe younger, speaking. This must be Octavian, he noted. It was customary for the augur to help out with formalities. Each Cohort's standard bearers stepped forward. The Fifth's pole, of course, was missing its eagle. Noah tried to ignore that little embarrassing detail though.

"For those who haven't heard," Carlton began. "This morning Noah Wood and Quinn Daughtry found an injured girl coming down the highway. We took her to the infirmary, and thankfully, she is well enough to attend our formalities today."

Noah's eyes darted to the left side of the room. He hadn't notice her earlier, but the girl was there. Although, she didn't look much better than she did earlier. She still had the bags under her eyes, though she did seem less tired. The cut on her face had been cleaned. She was leaning on a crutch to keep her weight off of her injured foot. For a moment, he caught her eye and they stared at each other. The green of her irises seemed to blaze just as strongly as they had outside, even though this was no longer an emergency situation. He tugged one of the corners of his mouth up into a small smile, trying to be welcoming or something. For a minute, he thought she had returned the smile, but then she was looking at Carlton again. He must have imagined it.

"This is Erin Foster everyone and she wishes to join the legion. What do the auguries say?" Carlton asked addressing Octavian.

The boy stuck out his bony chin and tried to put of an air of authority, though it was pretty clear he was nervous. Noah figured he would be too if it was his first time addressing the entire legion. "I- I've read the will of the gods," he said tripping over his words slightly. "The auguries approve. She is qualified."

"Ave!" the legion shouted in response. Hunter and the four other head centurions stepped forward to await the girl's placement.

"Erin," Octavian said to the girl. "Do you have a letter of reference?"

The girl reached into her pocket and pulled out the parchment that had fell from her pocket earlier. "I do."

Octavian took the letter from her and glanced over it. As he read the boy's eyebrows rose in surprise and he glanced nervously over to Leila and Carlton. "It's from Mercury," he said finally.

Leila's lips parted slightly as a look of surprise registered on her face. Quickly, she took the letter from the augur.

"Esteemed members of the Twelfth Legion," she read aloud. "I would greatly appreciate it if you treated my daughter with the greatest respect. She is an extremely talented girl. Yours truly, Mercury."

It was a brief note that basically was a bunch of fluff, but the importance it carried was felt throughout the room. It just wasn't every day that a letter recommendation came in from one of the gods. And Mercury was a pretty major one at that. Noah's heart fell. A small part of him had hoped that the girl would be placed into the Fifth Cohort, so that he would get a chance to talk with her. With a letter like that though, she would probably make it into the Third if not the Second or First, although you generally had to have several letters from past legionnaires to make it into the latter two.

"With a letter like this, you won't need a legionnaire to stand for you," Octavian told the girl. Noah noted that he seemed to be gaining confidence the longer he was up there. He now turned to the five centurions that had stepped forward "Will the First Cohort accept Erin Foster daughter of Mercury?"

Michael, the head of the First Cohort, looked extremely bored as he examined Erin. "Pass."

Octavian turned to the Jean, head of the Second Cohort. "Will the Second Cohort accept Erin Foster daughter of Mercury?'

Jean spent a longer bit of time examining Erin, even glancing back to the other centurion for his wordless opinion before saying, "Pass."

When Octavian asked the Third Cohort's centurion, Andy, he didn't hesitate to step forward. "She is welcome among our ranks," he said in his thick southern twang. Erin seemed to exhale a saved breath in deep relief. Noah hadn't noticed it when he'd first seen her, but now that it had been brought to his attention, she had seemed a little stiff.

"Your Cohort will be responsible as a whole for Erin Foster's actions, and should she fail to follow regulation each and every member will be liable for her actions. Do you understand?" Octavian said his voice rather shrill.

"We accept," Andy assured him.

"Right then," Octavian said biting his lip nervously. For a minute, it looked like he had forgotten what to do next, but it came to him. "You may join your Cohort Foster."

Noah watched as the girl hobbled over to the back of the Third Cohort, her _probatio _badge in hand_._ Leila and Carlton would doubtlessly take her back to the infirmary after they were dismissed. She definitely wasn't in any shape to participate in any of the activities later that day, well except for dinner. You didn't need to be able to walk to go to dinner.

"Dinner is being pushed back a half an hour today because there was an unfortunate accident with the stoves. We need to wait for the Fourth Cohort to clean up their mess. Everyone back to your stations until then," Carlton boomed shooting a little boy, no older than seven, a dirty look as he mentioned the stoves business.

With that the legion began to disassemble as each group made their way towards their separate jobs. Almost instinctually, Noah glided through the crowd, stepping around multitudes of legionnaires, and fell in step beside Quinn.

"He doesn't seem that bad," Quinn was saying to Jason Grace, the boy who stood beside him during the meeting.

"He was only nervous today because a bunch of people here have seniority on him," Jason insisted.

"How do you know that's just not how he is?" Quinn responded.

"Cause I bumped into him the other day on temple hill," Jason explained a look of distaste forming in his boyish features. "He asked if I was that Jupiter kid from the Fifth Cohort. I said yes, and then he told me to go away because he had official augur business to do in the shrines and stuff. He acted as if I was five."

Noah smiled sympathetically down at the kid. Jason was the Fifth's golden boy as he'd practically been raised in the legion. The amour that he was wearing was perfectly adjusted and polished, but it was slightly big on him, making his frame look smaller and more childish than it actually was. He wore his hair in a short military buzz, a nod to the Roman value of orderliness. He'd been a full member since he was three, and now, five years later, he technically had seniority on half of the camp. Most of the camp recognized him as an authority figure. He was the kind that demanded that sort of recognition after all. Unfortunately, there was always going to be those few newer campers who decided coming in that they were too good to be ordered around by an eight year old. Jason usually made sure that they learned otherwise during the next game of siege.

"Well maybe he's just moody," Quinn offered rubbing his chin with a knobby hand in thought.

"I don't like him," Jason muttered anyway. His mouth was curved into a distinct frown, and his blue eyes were clouded with thought.

Quinn shrugged, dismissing the topic. "What do you guys have now?" he asked as they were nearing the door.

"I'm polishing things in the armory with you remember?," Noah responded with an internal groan.

"Oh hey Noah," Jason said as if he were just noticing him. "I heard you got claimed."

"Er- yeah," Noah responded showing the kid his forearm. "Nox is my mom." He felt awkward saying the words allowed. After going through sixteen years of not knowing, saying it as if it was just a fact of life seemed wrong somehow.

"That's cool," Jason grinned at him. "I didn't think that Nox had demigod kids."

"Me neither," Noah mumbled. Jason's words were just another reminder that Nox wasn't part of Jupiter's generation. She was alive before the Titans, when the world was supposedly run by this guy named Chaos. Generally, most demigods were kids of Jupiter's siblings and those who were subordinate to him. For the thousandth time that day Noah told himself that there had to be other kids like him, with parents who weren't part of those who they might conventially think of as the gods. He even told himself that he might have some half brothers and sisters out there. He knew that he was lying to himself.

The three of them were walking towards the armory now. It wasn't that far from the meeting room, just a short gander down a stone path, and it was impossible to miss. The walk itself was a relatively pretty one. The stones that had been carefully hand placed into the dirt were each a different shade of gray. The grass that stretched for what looked like miles around in either direction was freshly cut, and it smelled as such. Then also in the distance you could see New Rome growing out of the horizon.

"Hey Jason where are you going?" Noah asked as it occurred to him that Jason didn't have polishing duty next. He never did seem to get the worst of the jobs, probably because Hunter liked him so much. As the son of Jupiter, he had the most potential of prying an ounce of respect out of their fellow Cohorts.

"I'm in charge of sword fighting lessons," he explained merrily. Quinn smirked, probably recalling the first time Jason had run lessons for their Cohort. Somewhere between his whining about how useless sword fighting was (being the son of Apollo and all), and Jason's ripe age of six at the time, Quinn had been pinned against the wall with a dangerously sharp point up against his throat.

They reached the armory a few moments later. On the outside, the building looked like every other one in camp. The walls were made of brick, four white columns supported the front entrance, and the top of a domed ceiling could be seen from a few yards back. The inside was filled with every weapon of offense, defense, mass destruction, ect. Whatever your fighting preference was, the armory had it. Rows and rows of swords, breastplates, shields and more lined the walls. Every which way you looked Imperial Gold shined brightly.

Quinn and Noah promptly made their way over to a long work bench that was pressed up against the far right wall. To the right of the table a heap of dirty gold weapons was strewed all over. The spears were covered with everything from a cracked dusty mud to the red stain of human blood. Two empty chairs were set up with clean white towels hanging neatly over the wooden backs.

Jason quickly disappeared from Quinn's side, loosing himself in the rows of clean swords. Moments later he reemerged with a handful of pointed objects, most of which were bigger than him. "See you guys around," the boy piped as he bobbed out the door. Noah smiled to himself.

At his side his friend was looking discouraged as he examined a thick sludge covering one of the blades. "Well we should probably get started," Quinn sighed running his fingers through his hair so that it stood up in thin wisps. Each of them grabbed something from the top of the pile and got to work scrubbing away the grime, until each weapon shined.

At first, the boys worked in silence as was customary. It was generally frowned upon to treat work as social time in the legion. As time passed though, it occurred to Noah that this was probably a good time to tell Quinn about what his mother had told him. Something held him back though, as if he were still worried about trusting his best (and possibly only) friend. Eventually, he decided that the pile of dirty weapons was shallow that it wasn't worth getting into the story.

When he was just finishing his seventh gold tipped spear, and decided it was time to put his pile back into their proper cabinet. As spears were popular amongst the Romans, he knew he'd have to make several trips to the cabinet anyway. Why not just put things away as he went? When he opened the elongated cabinet door he noticed something wrapped sitting on the floor. Even though he hadn't been into this specific cabinet in a while (he perfered fighting with swords), he was sure no legionnaire would leave some mysterious wrapped sword shaped package lying around for someone to find. He reached down and picked the object up. Whatever it was, he decided it was too short to function as a proper sword.

"Hey Quinn," he called. "What's this?" Seconds later the other boy was peering over his shoulder down at it.

"Dunno, unwrap it," he mumbled. Noah obeyed tearing the plain paper away off and throwing it to the side. The blade underneath the wrapping was most certainly unique. It was just too long to be a dagger, but it looked like it might be meant to be used as one. The blade itself was made of imperial gold. Instead of having the smooth edge of a knife or sword, this one curved backwards to a thin point at the end. On the flat of the gold there was a thin crescent whole carved out of the metal. Without being told, he knew that it was supposed to be a moon, the symbol for his mom. The hilt was black and had grooves wrapping around the width to help the user grip it.

_It's called Astriger,_ a familiar woman's voice spoke from nowhere. _You are not the first Demigod to weild it. Show it to the girl and she will trust you._

Noah dropped the dagger leaping backwards in surprise. "Did you here that?" a voice blurted out. But it wasn't Noah, it was Quinn. The boy was standing away from Noah with his hand touching the wood of his bow that he usually wore on his back. His cheeks, which were usually a golden tan, like he'd been laying out in the sun, had paled significantly.

"Y-yeah," Noah said gathering his wits. "That was my mom. You heard her?"

"Yeah..." Quinn said still stunned. Slowly he moved his hand off of his bow. "She said I was supposed to be prepared because I was going to have to shoot someone." Well Noah definitely wasn't expecting that. He stared at his friend shocked for a minute.

"What did she say exactly, word for word?" Noah finally said staring intently into his friend's brown eyes.

"Learn to grasp your inner strength, for in time the traitor's death may fall on your shoulders. Shoot straight," Quinn recited in a hushed whisper. Apollo's son had never looked so frightened.

"Quinn, I have to tell you something," Noah said quietly. Then he proceeded to tell the other boy everything.


	3. Chapter 3

Erin Foster let out a small groan as she looked in the mirror. She didn't think she'd ever looked so terrible. Her hair looked dead on her head, the usually healthy chocolate brown color drained to the color of cracked dry dirt. The sword wound that had streaked down her face in bloody red earlier was slightly healed now, but it was leaving a thin pink scar running down the right side of her face beside her eye. Then of course everything from her head to her toes seemed to be caked with mud and dirt. Apparently earlier there'd been a good bit of blood in there too, but the camp medic, a middle aged blonde demigod that lived in New Rome, had cleaned some of that up. Her foot (and her lack of ability to walk on it) was another matter entirely.

Still, she couldn't help but grin. She'd made it to Camp Jupiter, against all odds. And to top it all off, she'd been put into the Third Cohort. The medic had told her that that was a good thing. "And you thought I couldn't do it Dad," she muttered giddily.

"I'm sorry am I interrupting something?" someone with a thick country accent said from the door. Erin jumped; she hadn't realized someone was watching her.

"You weren't," Erin responded almost automatically, keeping her composure. She took her time turning away from the mirror so as not to appear too startled to whoever was standing in the doorway.

The new comer was one of the two or three people she actually recognized in the camp. If she had to guess, she'd say he was about twenty years old, definitely one of the elder legionnaires that she'd seen passing through. His face was square with a flat nose and thick eyebrows. The corners of his mouth had particularly deep lines around them, like he was constantly smiling. Despite the heavy southern twang that flowed from his mouth, his outward appearance kind of reminded her of the classic surfer dude that you'd expect to find along the western shore. Except that his skin was kind of pale. But, still, he had that kind of blonde hair though that sat on his head like a fuzzy heap of loose fur.

The two had never said more than a word to each other, but still Erin already knew she liked him immensely. Then again it might just be the fact that he didn't say pass when the scrawny little eleven year old boy had addressed him. Nothing like the fear of rejection to instill a deeply ingrained feeling of friendship!

"Andy right?" Erin grinned at him. He nodded turning up the corner of his mouth.

"Do you think you're well enough to come eat dinner with everyone?" he asked radiating that classic Southern hospitality.

She looked distastefully towards the crutch. Thanks to the medicine the medic had given her (ambrosia she thought it was called?) she was now able to stand up on her own. Still, she couldn't put her full weight on her bad foot, let alone walk all the way to the mess hall without the crutch.

"It's ok if you don't think you can make it," Andy said quickly.

Internally she sighed; of course she wasn't going to miss out on her first dinner here. These people were going to be her new family. She wasn't going to call in sick her first chance to get to know them. "No I'm going to come," she said. "The crutch is just irritating that's all."

"Well right this way then," he said. He held the door open for her as she hopped over to her crutch and waddled her way out the door wincing slightly as she accidentally knocked her bad foot on the door frame. They walked for a minute down the path in silence for a little while which naturally drove Erin crazy. She suffered from a severe case of ADHD, and without a conversation to focus on her thoughts bounced around in her head dwelling on all of her worries. And of course today, she had a _lot_ of worries.

"So are you from Texas or somewhere like that," Erin asked finally hoping the small talk would calm her nerves.

"All the way from Louisiana," he answered with a smile. "My Pa owns a farm down there."

"Then your mom is the godly one?" Erin inquired.

"Andy Wolfe, son of Ceres, centurion and senator of the Third Cohort at your service," he said dramatically. She smiled. He reminded her slightly, no strongly, of… Well never mind.

While he was on introductions, Andy seemed to decide that now was a good time to go on and explain the rest of the new-be stuff to her. Not that she was complaining, she honestly wanted to know. "We'll introduce you to everyone at dinner," he was saying. "I'm sure people will be wanting to talk with you and say hi. Now, mind you, they'll probably also be a little nosy and all. Just ignore 'em though. They're just hazing the new girl. Tonight that'll probably be it. Most of everything else will probably start once your all good 'n new. That's when someone 'll show you to the barracks, and how to put on your armor 'n stuff like that. Just spend dinner try'n to get to know everyone."

Erin swallowed feeling the nerves welling in her stomach. A small voice in her head told her that it didn't matter. They were going to learn to like her regardless of what she did tonight. After all, she was going to be fighting side by side with these people soon enough. From experience, she knew near death situations tended to bring people together. Regardless, she couldn't help but feel that old school yard girl worry about being accepted. Anyway, Andy was nice enough, how bad could the rest of the Cohort be.

"So… I hear the food's terrible," Erin said changing the subject.

Andy grinned. " Well gee I hope not, my cousins' the cook." Erin blushed slightly embarrassed, but Andy just laughed. "I'm joking. You know with everyone being related somehow on their godly side you never know who's your cousin and who's not. But actually the foods not that bad. We've got invisible wind spirits that bring out your favorite food from the kitchen. Its great."

"Ah," Erin said. The food part sounded cool, but hopefully that would be the last inside joke she'd be hearing for the rest of the night. It would be just her luck to get stuck listening to a million explanations.

"We're here," Andy suddenly declared. Erin looked up. He had led her down a dirt road, similar to the one that she had taken to get to that meeting thing earlier, to the boundaries of the hub of Camp Jupiter. They'd walked through an arched gateway with the word Praetoria etched in the top. Suddenly, every way they looked there were legionnaires, usually marching side by side in groups of two or three. They were all basically in full suits of armor except for helmets. Every few seconds Andy would wave to one of them flashing his pearly whites at his good friends.

She followed him through the basic layout of the now cobbled street of the camp. Even though they were slightly slowed by her walking impairment, they reached the mess hall within minutes. The room was relatively empty for dinner time. Andy must have picked her up early so that they'd be sure to make it on time.

"Our Cohort sits over there," he said from beside her pointing towards two tables in the center right of the room.

Carefully, Erin made her way around the tables and picked a seat near the end of the table, though not the v_ery _end. Andy dutifully made his way around and sat across from her. Again she was struck with his similarities to… Her throat began to close up with that awful crying sensation, but she pushed the feelings down before they dared show their face. She would _not_ cry. Not now.

"Well everyone should start showin up real soon now I'd think," Andy said to her. She plastered a small smile on her face. At least the accent was something different, something that was completely and utterly just Andy.

As if on cue two boys plopped themselves down right beside her, squeezing her in between them, and each flinging an arm around her shoulder. "Hey sis," first said.

"I'm Marcus," the second continued.

"And I'm Maximus," the first echoed.

"But we don't go by those," Marcus went on. "You see he would rather be called Max."

"And he would rather be called Marc," Max finished.

"Then again if you don't know who's who we also both accept Dordan, our last name," one of them said, Erin had already lost track. "You're name's Erin right?"

"Uh yeah," Erin replied feeling slightly overwhelmed.

"Well Foster we are pleased to inform you that you are our sister," Max (she thought) declared. Erin turned towards the boy who just spoke sizing him up. He looked really nothing like her. His hair was a stick straight black with a few dark brown highlights as opposed to her own wavy brown. His eyes were an off black, just too light to be considered completely devoid of light. That wasn't the biggest difference though. The biggest thing was in their skin. While she was quite white, his skin was a similar shade to wet sand. One of his parents was probably from India. Judging by the kid's scrawny limbs and child-like face, he couldn't have been any more than thirteen.

"I'm pretty sure my mom isn't Indian," Erin said suspiciously, playing along with their game for the time being.

That seemed to be the right thing to say because immediately both boys flashed her identical lopsided grins. That's when she saw it. She'd seen the man only once in her life, but he was there in their manner, in that oddly unique smile.

"Some people might find that offensive you know," Marc informed her.

"But you know we'll let it pass being that we weren't talking about your mom," Max continued.

"Or our mom," Marc piped in. "We were talking about daddy dearest, you know. Good ole' Mercury." Erin knew exactly what the boys were going for. Though they were probably unpredictable to their current comrades, she could see right through them. After all, she had been just like them once, trying to make the entire world one big joke.

As Andy had warned her, there was going to be some hazing that night at dinner. And here it was. Now the question was whether to put up with it or to show the boys up with a better joke. Well, she was never one to pass up a good time.

"Hmmm," Erin said examining each boy closely. She even dared to adjust Max's armor so that it sat slightly crooked on his chest. The boys waited slightly confused as she went about her false assentment. Then to top things, she gave a deep frown and shook her head gravely. "Nope, I don't see it," she announced.

"What?" Marc blurted out clearly thrown off his game. They had been expecting her to start flopping around like a fish after they dropped the 'I'm your sister' bomb, she knew it. This wasn't part of the plan.

"Well, I met Mercury about a month ago," Erin began. Already, she had caught the attention of not only the two boys, but also Andy and another girl who had sat down beside him. "I think I was in Idaho at the time on my way to Lupa's. He stopped me because he wanted to give me that letter of recommendation. I'm sure he must have done the same for you two. That is if you really are the sons of Mercury."

The boys went red before one crossed his arms and indignantly replied, "Our cousin was a legacy of Mars, and he wrote or letter. I'm sure Mercury didn't feel the need to make a charity trip to us because we already had connections with the legion."

"Ah," Erin said unconvinced. "Well you see me and Mercury, we had a nice sit down chat when he visited. He told me all about Camp Jupiter and stuff. He said to expect that I'd find a few half siblings here. I think he mentioned a Reese, or something like that."

"Reed?" Marc interrupted. The boy looked slightly paler than he had been earlier, definitely much less comfortable. She might even have spyed a hint of self-doubt showing in his eyes. Not so much self doubt in his parentage, but self doubt about whether his father cared for him or not.

"That's the one," she nodded. "Anyways, he didn't say anything about me having two little twin brothers."

"Reed is older than us," Max quipped immediately. "He's the second Centurion for the fourth Cohort. Mercury was probably just giving you the names of some of the higher ups."

"Well there's a third thing too," Erin went on. "You see you two just don't look like Mercury. Not in the slightest. He's got a pointed nose with really curly black hair, but a darker black than yours. And he's really athletic and muscular looking. I mean no offense, but you two look kind of scrawny. Usually demigods at least _sort_ of look like their parents. "

That took the cake. Neither boy knew how to respond. They hadn't met Mercury before, how would they know if they resembled Mercury or not? From experience, Erin knew that parentage was a touchy topic with demigod children. From the moment she had told them she'd met Mercury, they had been goners. Who could focus on silly pranks when they were wondering about deeper questions like why had their father had never talked to them? Or even why hadn't he even mentioned them when talking to Erin? These were crushing issues for two young boys who were extremely insecure with the probability that their dad didn't care two squats about them. Heck, they were crushing questions for any demigod.

Keeping this in mind, she knew that it was cruel to keep leading them on like that. She decided only to leave them hanging for a few moments more as she watched her success in the expressions on her faces. Then she alleviated them with a wicked grin.

Slowly the entire table seemed to let out a deep breath. Andy was the first to realize she had been pulling their leg as he let out a slightly nervous laugh. Then the girl next to him started to break down. Before long it seemed as if the entire Third Cohort was laughing, that is except the two twin boys that sat on either side of her. They looked rather peeved.

"Well," Max huffed moodily, his hair falling down in front of his eyes. "I think we'll be going. We're not that hungry anyway." Marc gave a single dramatic nod, agreeing with his brother, before the two stormed out like two year olds. For a minute, she regretted hurting the two boys, but she quickly brushed it off. She was well aware of the importance of what she just did. Mercury had made it very clear that before she would be accepted as a proper Roman she would have to prove herself a proper warrior, and, well, she'd just did exactly that. Except she had used words as her weapon, not a knife.

Immediately, after the boys had turned the corner, she found herself the center of attention. "That was impressive," the girl next to Andy said. Erin smiled gratefully at the girl.

The two spots that the boys had vacated were quickly filled. Two girls, who unlike most of the people that she'd met so far, looked to be about her age, joined her.

"It's about time someone put those two in their place," the one on her left said.

"Seriously," the other agreed. A few others who were sitting further away muttered their own compliments.

"Well, you know," Erin said slightly uncomfortable with all the attention. "You can't let your brothers get the best of you."

The girl who had been sitting next to Andy stretched a hand across the table and offered a friendly smile. "I'm Kasi," she introduced herself. Erin shook the girls hand, noticing that even though she'd gotten the impression that life here was generally pretty rugged, her nails had been carefully manicured. In fact everything about her seemed to be done up. Her hair was fell in crisp white-blonde ringlets, her full lips were covered in a startling red lipstick, even her brown eyes seemed to have some traces of eye shadow left on the lids and mascara on the lashes. Erin noted her proximity to Andy. They were unusually close to each other. That is unusually close for friends.

"Hi," Erin piped a cheery response.

She was suddenly being bombarded by introductions. The girl to her right with the slightly frizzy carrot colored hair was named Charlotte. The muscular dark skinned girl to her left was named Shayna, and had proudly declared just after saying her name that she was a legacy of Mars. A boy named Danny had come up and told her that he liked the massive gash on her face, that it made her look tough. Another guy, Beck, who had come over with Danny had gone ahead and given her a proper Roman soldier solute. It was slightly overwhelming, but hey, any worry about being accepted had disappeared.

As she was being introduced to the different legionnairs, the food was served. Dishes that seemed to be elevated by nothing but air floated over to each kid and plopped down in front of them. The trays swayed around and wobbled a bit as they travelled down the ailes, making Erin quite worried that something was going to fall on her. Thankfully, nothing did. The silver plate that was given to her had a warm bowl of potato soup steaming in it. She smiled, this was exactly what she needed right now- comfort food.

After a while, things got settled. Most of the people who had come to say hi returned to the seats. Erin fell into conversation with Charlotte, Shayna, Kasi, and Andy. They started giving her the in depth lowdown of how the military hierarchy worked

"You got pretty lucky you know," Shayna informed her. "We may not be the most respected Cohort in the camp, but we're loads better than the Fifth. The Legion's never seen a bigger bunch of failures."

"Oh come on," Charlotte chastised the other girl. "They aren't that bad."

"You say that now," Andy muttered unhappily. "But they didn't accidently burn down your mother's three hundred year old shrine."

Erin thought back to earlier that day. She had seen that boy, the one who had helped her when she'd gotten here. She had been bleeding out. When his dark figure appeared walking towards her on that highway her heart had leapt with joy. From that moment on she'd knew that she'd be ok, and she'd been right. He'd saved her life.

During the meeting she had caught his eye, and had tried to convey her gratitude to him. But then the proceedings had begun and she had been distracted. Looking back, she thought he might have been standing with the Fifth, but she wasn't been sure.

"That guy who was on guard duty when I got here?" Erin began, Kasi seemed to read her mind.

"Yes, he's been in the Fifth for three years. His name's Noah Wood. I think he was out there because his centurion had him on punishment for something," the girl informed her.

"You're lucky his friend didn't accidentally shoot you," Shayna muttered.

"I've fought with Quinn before during Seige," Charlotte said her hazel eyes glancing defensively at the other girl. "He's not _that_ terrible."

"Oh stop going Juventus on us Char," Shayna sighed harshly. "Not everyone is a saint, and honestly even if you had the strong desire to compliment the Fifth. Maybe you should try another angle other than their fighting skills. I can't even remember the last time they won in war games."

"Because constantly insulting them is going to help us so much," Charlotte muttered back sarcastically. Her thin lips were twisted into a defined frown that cut into her rounded cheeks.

"I'm making sure that we learn from their mistakes," Shayna argued vehemently. Charlotte's tiny shoulders sagged as she gave up on arguing. Erin got the feeling that this happened a lot. "Anyway that guy is weird. Did you hear who claimed him?"

"I heard his Ma was Nox," Andy answered as he took a large bite of a hefty piece of fried chicken.

Shayna nodded, "Exactly. _Nox_! Have you ever heard of a demigod related to anyone older than Jupiter? I haven't, its weird. I don't think he should even be allowed to stay with a mom like that. I mean how do we even know if Nox is allied with Jupiter or not? Having that guy here might be dangerous." Erin's heart sank a little. She'd been imaginning that guy- Noah- to be some sort of super hero, not some weird outcast. After all, she felt in debt to him after he helped her. Owing her life to someone of questionable character wasn't exactly ideal.

"I thought that the Fifth sucked at fighting Shay?" Charlotte said sweetly. "I'm sure that if Wood is that bad at fighting, he can't be too big of a threat. No matter who his mom is." Shayna shot Chorlotte a dirty look starting a solid three minute death stare down.

"So," Erin broke in as the tension in between the two rose a little too high to suit her taste. "I hear that the Praetors, Carlton and Leila are dating."

Judging by the wide grin on Kasi's face, she knew she'd hit a popular gossip vein. "Well," the girl began twirling a lock of hair in between her fingers. "They've been working together for about a half a year now…"

Erin stopped paying attention when Kasi started talking about the time when a friend of a friend of a cousin had caught Leila gazing thoughtfully into the distance and giving a troubled (and extremely girly) sigh. Gasp! Clearly Kasi had analyzed the two praetor's relationships immensely.

Even though her new comrade's had some colorful personalities, she found herself smiling again. Not just on the outside, smiling on the inside. It had been a long trip from her home in Iowa to Lupa's and then now to Camp Jupiter. Somewhere along the way she had lost something important part of herself. Well, she didn't lose it just anywhere. She'd lost it when he'd died. But now, as she sat there surrounded by these strangers, she knew it had returned. It had been there ever since she'd woken up in the infirmary. She'd had felt return when she saw that boy, Noah Wood, on the highway. That's when it had returned. And now, to her surprised she found herself reluctant to return to her secluded infirmary bed. She wanted to go back to the barracks, with her new friends, and just enjoy the familiar feeling of hope that surrounded her.


	4. Chapter 4

To say she was shocked when the medic had told her that her foot had healed completely, was an understatement. She'd only been in the hospital for three days. Out in the real world it was unheard of for an injury like that to heal so fast. The medic said that she'd practically crushed fifty percent of the bones in her foot, which she supposed made sense. She'd run into a Lamia, which was basically a sort of ancient vampire, in a construction yard while she was coming from Lupa's. At some point half way through the fight the monster had bumped into a truck full of heavy steel beams. She'd tried to get out of the way, but one of them landed on her foot. She'd never known such horribly excruciating pain.

Nevertheless, she could barely contain her excitement. The first thing she did was snap that stupid irritating crutch in half. With some luck, she'd never ever have to use any sort of walking aid again. Then she ran all the way up to the mess hall, burst through the double doors, and floated over to the Third Cohort's table, plopping herself next to Charlotte.

"Guess who's been discharged from the hospital," she announced slightly out of breath from the running.

"Erin that's great!" Charlotte said smiling. Erin grinned back. She decided that so far, Charlotte was her favorite person that she'd met. There was just something about her manner that Erin really appreciated. It was like you could do a million things wrong, and Charlotte would sit there talking about the one or two positive qualities that were buried somewhere deep within your personality.

As Erin sat there taking in the wonderful freedom of being injury-less, the wind spirits came over delivering breakfast. She was givin a plate of eggs and home fries. She felt like she was at home again as she stuffed a delicious fork full into her mouth.

"Oh yeah, now you get to play siege with us tonight," Shayna said wickedly as she recieved her own meal. Now Erin didn't know what to make of the other girl. Shayna was the sort that would push a five year old down a flight of steps and laughed as they tumbled. Still, she constantly was with Charlotte, which was as confusing as anything seeing that the two girls never agreed on anything.

"And I hear that we get to be defense this time," a guy a few seats down called over.

"Your point?" Erin asked confused.

"Oh you'll see," Shayna said winking at her.

"Oh come on, just tell her. At least then she'll be prepared. If you don't…" Charlotte began, but the other girl shot her the scariest death glare Erin had ever seen. With a deep sigh Charlotte let the issue drop.

"It's cool," Erin said feeling like she'd been issued a challenge. "You guys haven't seen me with a sword yet."

"Oh yeah?" Shayna said raising a dark eyebrow curiously. "You think you're good."

"Oh no. I just lived on my own in Cincinnati Ohio until I was fourteen without knowing squat about protecting myself. In fact, I think I was a first class ditz. When those scary monsters came around I totally fought them off with my amazing cat fighting skills," Erin said laying on the sarcasm. She flailed her arms out in demonstration of her epic ditz fighting skills.

Shayna actually smiled at Erin's joke, which was a first. She'd been pretty serious the past few days when Erin had joined them for meals. "Well then I guess we can expect a lot from you tonight then huh?" the girl said.

"I guess you can," Erin replied over confidently. On the inside her stomach was in knots. She was really in no position to be accepting a challenge like that from Shayna. The only reason she'd made it so long in Cincinatti was because she hadn't been there alone. She'd never really effectively defended herself. It had always been _his _job to proctect the two of them. Then once he'd... well, once she was on her own, that was when she'd gotten her foot crushed, a large gash on her right cheek, and a number of other injuries that she wasn't going to delve into. To put it simply, she really wasn't all that great at fighting

"Just don't get yourself killed," Charlotte murmured shaking her head at them. "Both of you."

* * *

Noah gazed doubtfully down at _Astriger. _It had been about three days since his mother had given him the blade, but he had yet to use it in combat. See, there was one huge problem with owning a blade that was too short to be used like a proper sword, but too long to be used like a knife: if it wasn't supposed to be used like any weapon he'd ever known, then how was he to fight with it. Deprived of proper training, he figured it'd be a better idea just to go without it. However, as each day passed, it become clear that his mom wasn't sending down any more signs to help out. If he ever wanted to figure it out, he would just have to wing it.

"Ready for combat birthday boy?" Quinn said slapping him on the shoulder. Noah glared at his friend and glanced around to see who else had heard. Thankfully everyone seemed to be as oblivious as always, and he wasn't being suddenly bombarded by a thousand birthday wishes.

"Please stop that," Noah muttered. "One day they're actually going to hear you."

"Isn't that the point?" Quinn asked with an evil grin as he ran his hand through his hair, making it stick up. Noah didn't even bother giving that question recognition as it didn't deserve it. Instead he strapped _Astriger_ to his belt and turned to examine a few normal swords. He figured it'd be best to have some sort of back up just in case he needed it.

There was the sound of two hands clapping together, and the two boys turned to see Hunter standing on a bench calling everyone to attention. Immediately, Noah knew that he wasn't there to deliver pleasant news. His copper hair was falling into his eyes, defying its usual orderliness. The muscles in his jaw were flexing angrily, and his brown eyes were burning with rage. Noah briefly imagined steam blowing out of his centurion's ears as it would complete the picture perfectly.

"I've just talked with Michael Axton from the First Cohort," Hunter began. Everyone held their breath as they waited for Hunter to deliver the blow. "He said that we're going to go in last…"

Everyone seemed to exhale in unison and an excited murmur made its way through the room. Was that it? Usually, they would get stuck on the front lines hoping desperately that they'd do some damage before they got pummeled. Going last was a dream, it meant that hopefully one of their legionnaires might actually have a chance at getting to the flag. Freddy was the first to dare speak up about it. "Isn't that good news Hunter?" he inquired tentatively.

That's when their centurion exploded. "DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HIS EXACT WORDS WERE ROSS?" he bellowed. "HE SAID THAT WE SHOULD JUST STAY OUT OF HIS WAY AND TRY VERY VERY HARD NOT TO SCREW ANYTHING UP!" Hunter's chest rose and fell visibly as he seethed at Freddy.

When he put it that way, going last didn't seem like such a great thing. For the following five minutes the entire Cohort just sort of stood their taking in their own levels of shame. Noah himself hung his head awkwardly staring at his feet. He honestly didn't really care if his Cohort was full of a bunch of screw ups. He liked the few friends he had, and didn't see the point in getting caught up in the legion's honor competition. In fact, it was one of the reasons that he couldn't wait until he could leave.

"Well you know what that means don't you," a calm voice said from the back of the row of the Cohort's lockers. A girl with layered black hair propped her boot up onto the bench and leaned foward as she stared into Hunter's eyes awaiting an answer to her question. Noah suppressed a small smile. Of all the people in the Fifth, there was only one who had the authority to challenge the centurion.

"What Mia?" Hunter asked going along with the flow of things for once. His eyes regarded the girl wearily as if expecting her to make things worse.

"It means that they've underestimated us, and that we're going to take advantage of it," the girl replied. She raised her head and looked each soldier as if challenging them to be better than they were, to push their limits. "We are going to wait until the First is clanging their swords with the Third's front lines, until the Fourth is starting to attack the Second's assets. Then we are going to charge, avoid fighting anyone for too long, and we are going to take their flag. The only thing between us and glory is our selves, not some dumb eagle."

There was silence as everyone felt the rippling effect of her words. Even Hunter had gotten down from the bench and was staring at her in awe. Now that was why Mia, their second centurion, usually let Hunter do everything. Because when you usually don't say anything, the few words you do utter suddenly become precious.

"Ave!" Jason's voice rang through the room as he saluted her by banging the bottom of his spear on the ground. The rest of the legion followed suit. Noah and Quinn exchanged eye contact and the later thumped his chest. This time, the flag was theirs.

Before long the Cohort had marched all the way to the Field of Mars and was awaiting orders. From the outside, it appeared that the fort wasn't as well assembled as usual. Probably because Gary, a member of the Second Cohort and a son of Vulcan, was sick. He was usually the one in charge leading the construction of the fort when the Second was on defense. The outer wall was a few feet shorter than usual, and there were no cannons visible at the summit. Behind that first wall three towers protruded into the sky, each of different hieghts. That was impressive, but it wasn't as defensively sound as some other designs.

A loud horn sounded through the air, and a battle cry rose up from the Fourth. Their Cohort charged towards the wall fearlessly attacking. Within a few seconds they were launching hooks up to the top of the wall and pulling them taught. That was when the defense started to go into action. The ropes that were grappling the wall quickly were set on fire. Spear after spear was launched down at the Forth. Still, they persisted.

The Fourth gradually marched so that there was two lines of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder. The front line held shields up high standing strong as random sharp objects were hurtled down at them. The second line was filled with the Fourth's 'assets', the kids in their ranks that could do special things because of their godly parent. The assets began a systematic assault on the fortress, using their powers instead of their weapons to attack. Children of Trivia murmered spells and threw smoking balls of some kind of explosive herbal mixture over the wall. Children of Ceres stood with their hands foward in concentration as vines sprouted from the ground and laced their way up the wall chipping at the stone. Even the two children of Apollo in the Forth were launching specialized arrows over the wall with deadly precision.

The defense team was prepared for this though. They cataplted rocks at the explosives making them blow up pre maturely. The same fire that burned down the ropes burned the vines. Shields popped up absorbing most of the arrows. One Cohort clearly wasn't enough.

"Forward march!" Michael yelled to the First realizing that the Fourth needed aid. Then they too were heading down from the wall. Once they joined the Fourth the proceeding force was too much. There weren't enough defenders on top of the wall to hold off two entire Cohorts. Soon, someone threw something explosive at the bottom of the wall and a huge gap opened, soldiers flooded in.

"Ready guys?" Mia yelled from the front of the lines deciding that now was a good time to start reaping the fruits of being the back line. They only waited a second longer before she gave the command. "ATACK!"

Their entire Cohort sprinted down towards the fortress n a v-formation. Noah felt the wind rippling through his hair. It was only then that it occurred to him that it was dark outside. He felt the moon and stars staring down at him from above. As if compelled to do so he reached down to his belt and unstrapped _Astriger. _Somehow he knew that he would be able to use it flawlessly.

When they reached the opening in the wall he was the first of the Fifth to step over the threshold. The scene in front of them was chaos. The air was filled with dust kicked up from soldier's boots and the sound of clashing weapons. Everywhere he looked, Noah saw members from the Third and Second fighting someone from the Fourth or First.

At some point, when passing through the narrow opening of the wall their Cohort had gotten split up. Quinn was the only other legionnaire from the Fifth in Noah's immediate line of sight.

"Ready?" Quinn mouthed to him. Noah nodded gripping _Astriger_ in his right hand.

The Second and Third were adjusting to the Fifth's arrival now, and a few of them were shifting their assault to the new enemies. As it was just the two of them, Noah took point. _Astriger_ became an extension of his own arm as he began to do what felt like a dance. With a sword he had been able to keep more of a distance between himself and his enemy. Now if he wanted to get close enough to land a blow he had to evade his opponent's attacks. He whirled on his feet keeping his center of balance low to the ground and lunging quickly then retracting the way a snake might snap at its prey.

For what little experience he had with _Astriger, _he was doing remarkably well. It was like the Second and Third didn't know how to react to his new technique. Every time someone came at him he parried them expertly and landed a blow in the center of their breast plate. Then he would spin around and hit another guy in the knee. With the moon shining down on him he felt invincible.

"Come on we need to go into one of the towers," Quinn yelled over the commotion to his friend.

Noah signaled to the shortest one. If he were going to hide a flag, that's where he'd put it. His friend nodded as he shot arrows over Noah's shoulders. And so the two of them started advancing forward.

* * *

By the time the battle was five minutes underway, Erin understood exactly what Shayna had meant earlier. Her status as the newest _probatio _made her an easy target. Maybe she had picked up a sword a time or two in the past, but she wasn't prepared for this. They'd stationed her in the shortest tower because it didn't have the flag in it. Even so, the minute people had burst through the door, she'd felt overwhelmed.

It was all she could do to protect herself, let alone actually best anyone. Thankfully most people left once they realized that this tower was nothing more than a large circular room with nothing in it except ten members of the Second and Third waiting to attack. If she had been stationed by the flag she had no doubt she'd be in the infirmary again by the end of the game.

Currently she was fighting a short fair skinned girl who was being annoyingly persistent. She wielded a long spear that was making it exceedingly difficult for Erin to defend herself. As the girl stabbed forward, Erin did her best to knock the point to the side, but her muscles were out of shape from her lack of daily exercise since she'd left Lupa's. Erin knew she was fighting a losing battle, and it was only a matter of time before this other girl brought it to a close.

That was when the door burst open again. The two boys that had found her on the highway burst in giving two battle cries. The girl she had been fighting was distracted by the two's entrance, and Erin took advantage slapping the flat of her blade against the girl's helmet. She crumpled and Erin stared down at her in disbelief.

"Nice shot," one of her team mates yelled from across the room. Erin turned to face the new comers.

The younger one was staying by the door way as he shot blunt arrows across the room covering his friend, Noah. Erin knew better than to go after the archer. She would never get close enough to fight him.

Noah was currently tearing though the room fighting three members from the Second all at once. It was like they didn't understand his movements. That was when she saw it. The weapon he was using was short with a crecent moon shaped hole in the middle of the blade. He used it like a sharp club dancing around his opponents attacks.

Erin watched in horror feeling a sickening feeling of déjà vu sweep over her. She'd seen another boy at another time fight with that blade. Tears threatened to flood out of her eyes as she became paralyzed by the memories. She'd watched him fight with that blade so many times before. She remembered him holding that blade as he cut down a Telekhine that was trying to hurt her. Weilding it againts a hellhound that had attacked them at a restaurant. Laughing as it sat on his belt. Using it to teach her how to fight with a knife. Noah's movements were painfully identical to his.

How had he gotten that blade? How had he gotten his _Astriger_?

Suddenly the grief was leaving her, replaced by anger. _Astriger _didn't belong to that boy. How dare he wield it like it was his. She gripped her own sword in her hands and charged at the boy full speed. He wasn't fazed in the slightest. As she circled around to him, he stepped forward prepared to continue his dance with her.

There was a difference between Erin and his other victims though. As he parried her blow and moved to spear forward, she anticipated it. She knew every move before it happened, and quickly the two were deadlocked. Her drive was ruthless though. As his stamina tapered off, her determination increased. She felt her eyes burning with rage and grief as she snapped her sword at the hilt of his blade sending it flying to the ground. He stumbled backward losing his balance, and Erin followed him. She swung her blade around and drove it forward stopping it seconds before it pierced his throat.

She stood there holding him on the brink of death for several moments. She wanted to drive the blade forward and end him more than anyone could ever understand. If he had _Astriger_, then maybe he had been the one behind that mask that day years ago. Maybe it he had been the murderer.

It was his eyes that stopped her. They were dark, like a shadow, and housed complete and utter surprise as she glared into them. It couldn't be him. The man behind the mask had crystal blue eyes.

She lowered her sword slightly staring at him distrustfully. The words came to her slowly, entwined with the pent up agony and grief of three years.

"Where did you get that sword?"


	5. Chapter 5

Noah felt his feet growing numb as he made his way through the wet grass. The crisp winter air gnawed at his arms and legs, sending shivers down his spine. His hands felt raw as he gripped the roughly woven sack that was slung over his shoulder. He wished that he had been able to steal some of his day cloths for this trip, but that would've been too risky. Hunter's keen eye surely would've noticed that the barrack's closet had been disturbed. Thus he had to make to with his tragically thin long sleeved black pajama shirt and grey plaid flannel pants for his trip. He couldn't even risk wearing shoes for fear of tracking mud into the barracks when he returned.

His mind raked the battle over for the billionth time. Quinn and he had burst into the short tower, and things were going so well. He was cutting down enemies left and right. Then that girl was there, and the fight commenced. It was like she'd seen him fight before. Every time he made a move her sword was already there blocking his. Next thing he knew, her sword point was pressed against his throat and her green eyes were burning with vengeance. He thought she was going to kill him. He honestly did. His mom had told him that if she saw the blade, she'd trust him. Well what a load of crap that was. Trust, ha! He was lucky to still be alive_._

Thank the gods she was suddenly hit by some kind of sense and her eyes had softened. She wasn't going to kill him, but now she wanted answers. Answers that he probably didn't have.

"Noah?" a voice said cutting into his reverie. He was coming up the top of a hill by one of the bridges that led across The Little Tiber. In the distance he could still see the heart of Camp Jupiter, where he'd walked from. At the top of the hill stood the girl, Erin Foster, that had almost killed him earlier that day. She was shivering in her generic purple SPQR pajamas, just as he'd instructed her to, although she'd risked coming in shoes. His eyes darkened; she shouldn't be wearing those.

"Hey," he mumbled back as he reached her. "You didn't listen to me."

"Come on the world is not going to end because I decided to wear shoes today," Erin said with a light laugh. He felt the corners of his mouth turn down in deep disapproval of her lack of ability to follow instructions. It was so painfully obvious that she was new here, any seasoned legionnaire had mastered the act of following orders.

"You took all of the other precautions I told you about right?" he checked feeling his chest swell with worry.

"Yeah yeah yeah," she said brushing him off and rolling her eyes. "No one saw me leave, and there's a bunch of pillows under my covers."

"But you checked to make sure both of your centurions were already asleep too, and you closed the door completely, and you didn't take anything else with you other than those shoes?" Noah asked sternly. She was smiling at him amused.

"No, I totally just walked out the door making a huge racket just to be sure that someone heard me. It was all part of my evil master plan to get you in trouble," she said sarcastically. He didn't find her funny in the least.

"You realize that it's not me I'm worried about," he informed her crossing his arms, partly because she was annoying him and partly because he was cold.

"Well then you should stop," she said giving him a friendly smile. "I've got myself covered."

He shook his head. She was missing the point. "Do you know what they do to _probatios _that don't follow the rules?"

The smile fell from her face and was replaced by a curious frown. Her brown curls fell out behind her ear dangling loosely in the air as she cocked her head slightly to the side. "No," she said ignorantly. Still, she didn't seem all that worried about her general well being.

"If you're lucky they'll just put you on watch. You'd have like triple the chores for about a year, and they'd put off your induction as a full member of the legion for a little while. Then one of your centurions would probably get in trouble for not keeping an eye on you," he enlightened her glancing over his shoulder for the umpteenth time. Nothing had changed; no one was there.

"And if I'm not lucky?" she asked raising an eyebrow and smirking at him again.

"They'll kill you," he said gritting his teeth. Hopefully that got the message through to her, but then of course, humor was still playing across her eyes. He scowled.

"I think I'm just going to make do with my chances," she said rolling her eyes. He stared at her incredulously for a moment. "Did you bring it?" she asked after a moment. The humorous fire that had been burning in her eyes abating momentarily as her voice dropped to a whisper.

Noah nodded slipping the sack off his shoulder and pulling at the knot. The corners of the brown burlap fell loosely to the side. _Astriger's _blade glowed slightly in the moon light as it toppled out of the sack, the only object in it. The bag was multi-purposed though asbig enough to function as a sort of blanket.

"You, uh, want to sit down or something?" Noah asked uncomfortably. She nodded gracefully plopping herself down onto the blanket. Her eyes kept glancing over at his blade as if she didn't believe it was actually there.

"You want to start by telling me how you got the sword?" Erin asked.

Noah glanced up at the moon briefly asking his mom for strength. He was never all that skillful with words "It started on the day you showed up," Noah began. He felt her watching him closely as he started divulging his story. He described the vision he had of his mother and what she'd told him making sure to include the few times Nox had mentioned Erin. Then he went on to polishing duty later that day and how he'd found the package in the spears cabinet. "She said that I wasn't the first demigod to fight with it," he finished slowly. "I take it that you knew whoever had it before me."

She nodded taking in the information. Her eyes stared off into the distance, and her face was paler than it had been before. The sound of their breathing was all he could hear as he watched her breath rhythmically materialize in an icy mist. There was an air of distinct disappointment as he gave her the few details that he had. He hadn't lived up to her high expectations, it wasn't a first.

Silence surrounded the two of them. Noah felt like he might as well have been alone out there, just him in the moon, because she wasn't speaking. He glanced up at the sky for strength, subconciously picking out some constellations from the pack of stars that coated the sky like a light ocean spray. "So, um, where have- er- you seen my sword before?" he prompted leaning backward onto his numb hands.

She hugged her knees tightly and shook her head. "Look," she began with a strained voice. "I'm really sorry about earlier."

He felt like she was dismissing his question, bringing them off topic. "About what?" he asked not having the guts to bring her back on topic.

"About almost killing you," she responded with a wry smile. "I promise I usually only almost kill the bad guys."

"Er- that's ok," Noah mumbled back. If he had been chatting with her on a normal day he would have told her that _almost_ killing a monster wasn't going to do her much good, but this wasn't a normal conversation. They had business to attend to. So he paused and waited a little longer for her to keep going, but she sounded like she was done talking, which really wasn't ok. His mother had told him to show her _Astriger _because she must have known that it would bring the two of them to this hill. He needed to hear what she knew. "Listen, I don't know what happened to you or whatever. But I really need to know why you flipped out when you saw me fighting with _Astriger_. I think it might be really important."

"It's not," Erin whispered. Her eyes went out of focus and she hugged her knees tighter to her chest. There was something disterbingly vulnerable about the way she said that, like he was getting brief glimpse of the raw feelings underneath her layers of joking defense. His first instinct was to recoil. He didn't want to hear this girl's life story. Her business was her business. Despite his natural fear though, Noah felt his temper mounting slightly. She came here expecting answers from him, now he expected them from her.

"What does that mean?" he demanded his eyes boring into her.

"You know I met my dad in Idaho about two weeks ago," she said. "He told me that I should make some new friends here, but I should choose them wisely. That sounds like it's sort of along the lines of what your mom told you, that there's someone here that's not trustworthy."

"Ok…" Noah said prompting her to explain herself more fully.

"If someone here was a traitor, that means they are working for someone else right? Someone bad, like maybe Pluto," she said gaining confidence as she spoke.

"Correct."

"Well, why would you want a traitor from say a _probatio_ who had no influence here?" she asked. Noah stared at her like she was dumb. Of course the traitor wasn't a _probatio. _Not only did a _probatio_ lack all fighting experience, but they didn't have any connections around camp.

"I wouldn't," he answered squinting at her.

"Right," she said nodding. Her face had taken a studious look to it, though there still was a dimmed mischievous glint in her eye. That might just be the way her face was though. "Ideally, you'd want to have the praetor in your pocket."

Noah actually laughed at that one. It was the funniest joke he'd heard all day. He couldn't even attempt to imagine Carlton sneaking around and fratinizing with any enemy of the Republic. The thought was quite simply, illogical. "Are you calling Leila a traitor because I highly doubt that," he said smiling as the mental image of the other praetor conspiring against a fly.

"Exactly!" she said grinning at him like she'd discovered the cure for cancer. "Could you imagine either of your centurions betraying the legion?" He shook his head now straining with the image of Mia and Hunter meeting with some evil monster to destroy the camp. It seemed counter intuitive being that the two had basically committed their lives to the legion's welfare. Erin's green eyes flitted back towards the barracks. "I bet you can't name one person in the entire legion that you might suspect."

Noah opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again. She was right. In fact, he had basically spent the past three days avoiding the issue. Quinn had brought it up a few times dropping a few names around like it was nothing, but this bothered him. He hated questioning people's integrity, people who had worked hard to advance in the legion's ranks. Every time Quinn brought someone up he found himself remembering some time that they'd helped him carry a box across campus, or when they'd saved his life during war games.

"You're too close to people. You've got memories of them that I don't have. I bet that you even knew whoever the defector is before they, well, defected," Erin said. "I don't think that my past has anything to do with this. But I bet I can provide a fresh set of eyes."

Noah considered this. It made perfect sense, like something his mom might set up for him. Then again, she seemed pretty jumpy about wherever she'd seen his sword before. He knew that he'd probably made this up on the spot trying to keep her secrets. Still, he liked her theory a lot better than the way he didn't have to hear a bunch of emotional personal stuff, and it left a lot of the investigating on her shoulders.

It was too easy for him to smile at her and nod. "I guess that makes sense," he said cautiously.

She flashed her teeth at him, the mischievous glint returning to her eyes. He got the feeling that she was already scheming all the different ways she was going to invade the different senator's personal belongings try and root out the traitor. "We'll have to check everyone with a tittle. All ten centurions, the praetors, the augur, the senators, and anyone else you can think of," she told him.

"The augur!" Noah exclaimed recalling the Quinn and Jason talking the other day. Maybe he could name one person as a possible suspect. The Octavian kid had never done anything to lead Noah to trust him. In fact, the guy had done just the opposite. Anyone that Jason thought was sketchy definitely wasn't golden in Noah's book. Then to top things off bringing up his name brought the attention off some of the more upstanding citizens of Camp Jupiter, people that weren't even worth checking out. "It could be him. He showed up like two weeks ago, and got the job because he had two letters of recommendation. Think about it, he's barely been here for a month, but right after he shows, I get claimed and all this starts happening. It makes sense."

Erin paused contemplating this for a minute. "Yeah, I guess it can't hurt to check him out first. Do you think you can get me his schedule or something?"

"We can't be seen talking," Noah said immediately. He imagined the whispering that would go on behind their backs if anyone saw them so much as glance at each other. No one would really trust Erin that much if they knew she was chatting with anyone from the Fifth. Of course, she hadn't been around camp long enough to understand all the risks. She hadn't seen just how cruel some of her fellow legionnaires could be.

"That's fine," she said. He could see the moon reflecting in her irises making her look exceedingly suspicious as her mouth twisted into a mischievous grin. "Just keep it in your pocket for a day. I'll get it." He stared at her not comprehending. What was that supposed to mean? She had been expecting his confusion though as her smile widened. "I'm going to pick pocket you," she informed him. He was at a loss for words.

"You can't just pick pocket someone," he stated incrdulously. Every time this girl opened her mouth it was like he found something less and less Roman about her. Didn't she understand that stealing was in fact illegal? You don't just go around committing misdemeaners like you were a common criminal. It was wrong.

"Its not really pick pocketing if you know its comming," she said, rolling her eyes at him like he was five. "Any way how do you expect to find the traitor if you don't plan on doing some things that are at least minorly illegal? Did you plan on going around and asking people because I think that our perpetrator would lie. That's what people do when they're caught. I mean if you find a twenty on the ground and pocket it, then somebody asks if you've seen any money lying around, what do you say?"

"Here's your money mam try not to lose it again next time?" he offered half heartedly. In response, the girl laughed. Clearly that was the wrong answer. He sighed; she was lucky her dad was Mercury. At least that way she could blame her behavior on bad genes. He shook his head distastfully, strands of his night black hair falling into his eyes. "I'll just pretend that I didn't hear you say that."

"Sure," she replied merrily. "Now what if we need to meet again? You said we can't be seen talking right?"

"Yeah. If we are seen together it will draw too much unwanted attention. It'd probably just be dating rumors, but still someone might notice something," he confirmed. He glanced back towards the barracks. The sillouette of the building was dark and peaceful in the distance. Though they were too far away to know for sure, he knew that there wasn't a soul awake among the sleeping demigods. Compared to the risk of chatting during the day, their chances were much better sneaking out at night like this. It definitely wasn't ideal, but it was doable. "We'll need some sort of sign so that we can tell each other to meet at night like this when we decide we have something to talk about."

Erin paused, her brown eyebrows drawing together in thought. He watched her as the smart-aleck demeaner vanished momentarily. He decided that she was pretty when she wasn't busy looking (and talking) like a class-a criminal. Without the roudy fire that so often burned in her green eyes, her features became softer, more girly. It made her look kind of innocent, a trait that he'd always appreciated in people being that he'd seen a lot of carnage over the years.

"Is there a good hiding place somewhere around camp?" she asked after a moment looking back over at him. Noah quickly averted his eyes and pretended to be caught up in the thousands of stars hovering above in the night sky. Hopefully she hadn't caught him staring at her.

He thought for a minute, mentally going over the various crevices around the campus. There was a loose patch of grass that they could bury notes under, but it was located over by the Little Tiber. There was no guarantee that either of them would be able to check it often enough. Maybe they could hide their letters in one of the armory closets. The bow and arrow cabinet wasn't used that often, and when someone did check it, that someone was usually just Quinn. Then again, Hunter and some other kids of Apollo lineage also went in there occasionally. That was still a little risky.

"How about the fifth rock from the mess hall? It's pretty noticeable, one of Mars' kids spray painted their dad's symbol on it in red. Its a little big, but I bet you could still lift it up and stick something under it," he offered.

"Perfect," she agreed. Her eyes searched the ground for a minute before she seemed to find what she was looking for. Then, tentatively she reached across him and picked up _Astriger_. Her fingers handled it with extreme care, as if she expected it to start jumping around on its own any second. As she returned to her spot she brushed up against his wrist ever so slightly. Immediately, he retracted his arm, which he had been resting on his knees.

"You're really cold," he said in alarm as Erin sawed two pieces of fabric off the corner of the burlap sack.

She looked at him funny. "Yeah it's the middle of the winter and we are sitting outside in the grass at night." Noah frowned. He had forgotten the chill of the night as they had been talking. Now that his attention was back on the temperature though he felt the cold returning running through him like he'd dove into a pool full of ice water. He shook his head dismissing it. He was probably imagining things.

"Right," she said dismissing his sudden weirdness and returning to the matter at hand. "If you ever need to talk to me put this under the rock so that its sticking out. That means meet here on this hill at one in the morning. Um, how about we'll say that it has to be there by dinner time. If you stick it there the after then we'll just have to meet the next day. If you put it there and I'm not here by like two in the morning then assume I'm not comming and go back. I'll do the same if I ever need to talk with you. Kay?"

He nodded as he stood up, stretching out his legs and he unfroze his joints. He turned holding out his hand and helping Erin to her feet. She'd been out here longer than was safe. It was about time to start heading back to bed.

"I'm going to tell Quinn everything," Noah said. "He's as much a part of this as we are. Nox told him he was probably going to have to shoot the traitor."

Erin nodded looking back over towards the barracks. "Right now we're trying to rule out Octavious, but that doesn't mean stop looking at everyone else."

Noah diverted his eyes from her face. He knew that was her way of telling him not to shut himself off to other possible culprets, but there were just some people that he refused to even consider traitors. It was insulting to think of them like that.

"All right," he mumbled back to her completely aware that he was probably lying through his teeth.

"I'll see you around then," she said as she started to walk back down her hill.

He stood there watching her go, so that she'd have a sufficient head start on him. Gods she even walked like a criminal. With a deep sigh Noah fell back onto the burlap sack and stared up at the moon. He knew that his mom was watching him through the bright beacon, and he desperately hoped that he was making going to make her proud.


	6. Chapter 6

"You ready to go Erin?" Charlotte asked cheerfully from the door to the armory.

"In a sec," the other girl replied as she heaved her breastplate into the pile of used armor. It was a relief to finally get it off her. She'd never thought much about how much of a burden Roman armor must have been to the soldiers of old, but it only took a few days in the legion to grasp a hearty appreciation for anyone with the ability to walk whilst wearing it.

Luckily, this afternoon she wasn't going to have to wear any form of metal shell, or carry any weapons. In the city, they were allowed to wear whatever they wanted. Which, for Erin meant a generic Camp Jupiter purple shirt, and some jean shorts she'd borrowed from another girl in her barracks, being that all of her own cloths had arrived with multiple blood stains. Apparently, most bodily fluids didn't come out all that well in the wash.

"Ready," Erin called, jogging over to the door of the armory. Charlotte was standing just outside patiently and Shayna was waiting a bit down the road, not so patiently. The three girls were going on a trip to New Rome that evening, and Erin couldn't contain her excitement.

"We're going to have to buy you some new things," Charlotte told her excitedly. "You can't borrow Gina's shorts forever. I know the perfect store to visit. It'll be fun."

Erin smiled. She didn't think she'd ever seen the girl so animated before, and as Charlotte was such an easy girl to get along with, it was hard not to get caught up in her enthusiasm. The girl had even dressed for the occasion, wearing a nice blue cable knit sweater, skinny jeans, and brown fur boots that came up to her mid-calf. Her usually frizzy carrot hair had been crimped, taming it a little. She'd even gone ahead and put make up on- an action rarely done by any girl in the camp. Their work as legionnaires was usually too strenuous to really permit dressing nicely for the job.

Shayna on the other hand, was the exact opposite. Their victory in Siege two nights ago had been a bitter sweet win. On the bright side, they'd completely annihilated the other team. On the down side, now they had their Sunday afternoon off. The girl was wearing a big baggy sweatshirt and dark grey sweat pants with holes in the knees, just to prove that she'd rather be working than taking a girl's day out.

"I heard that it's really nice in New Rome," Erin said to Charlotte. As part of her All-You-Need-To-Know-About-Camp-Jupiter tutorial that she'd received from Andy the other night, she'd learned a good bit about the city. It sounded like the exact opposite of her old home in Cincinatti. Andy had said that the Romans kept it immaculately clean, and that it was a sort of safe haven for older demigods. Just the fact that he'd used the word safe in the same sentence as city had shocked Erin.

"It's amazing," Charlotte confirmed. "It's like most cities, except that everyone there is from our world. Everyone there knows everything about the gods and stuff. You don't have to deal with those mortals who ask you about your parents and you don't have to lie and say they're both dead. Here you can say 'Oh, well, you know I'm the daughter of Juventus,' and no one is going to look at you funny. When I retire from the legion, I'm going to open a Macys there."

A little bit further up the road Shayna snorted. "Don't listen to her; it's really not that great. She's just sour because she idolizes the entire idea of a city with a history. If she had it her way she'd up an move across the world to the actual Rome, except for the fact that going anywhere near there is sort of illegal, so she's has to settle for New Rome," the girl explained tucking a lock of brown hair behind her ear moodily.

Charlotte frowned, glaring at her friend. It was the first time Erin had ever seen the girl anything close to hostile. "I would never want to move to Rome," she replied deadly serious.

"Why's that?" Erin asked tentative. She didn't really want to irk Charlotte further, but she was honestly curious about her question. Being that she was still sort of the new girl, she figured she could probably get away with it.

"Because maybe I just want to live the rest of my life without having to constantly look over my shoulder for monsters," she explained crossing her arms as she stared at Shayna. For the thousandth time, Erin wondered why the two were even friends.

They walked down the dirt path that the legionnaires always referred to as the _Via Praetora_. In the distance, Erin could make out the city on the horizon. In many ways it reminded her of her home, with the few buildings that towered up towards the sky; however, even from here, she could see the differences. Even the tallest building on the skyline couldn't compare to the skyscrapers back in Cincinatti, and the structures didn't give off the same polluted urbanized feel to them.

"Well I can't wait to see it," Erin declared, as the silence between the other two girls started to become uncomfortable. Briefly, she began to tell her new friends about her city. She described the different shops she'd been to, popular restaurants, and of course the few trips she'd taken to see the Cincinnati Bengals play. Even though she'd never understood football all that well, the atmosphere at the games was incredible. Of course she left out a lot too. For example, her friends didn't need to know that she'd pick pocketed the tickets to said football games off strangers, or that her favorite stores were the ones that she most commonly shop lifted from. Everyone had to have their secrets.

"It sounds like it was nice," Charlotte said with a warm smile. The girl was sniffling slightly against the cold, and her nose had turned slightly red in the winter air.

Erin nodded nostalgically. "It was," she said. That is, it was nice until she was about ten, and she'd been attacked by a chimera. It had killed her mom, and from that point on it was a constant fight to be left alone. Of course, even after the woman had passed and she had to spend every waking moment looking over her shoulder, she'd still always been happy. He had still been with her back then.

"I grew up in the suburbs," Charlotte said rubbing her hands together for warmth. "My dad was a doctor at the local hospital. He said that he met my mom as one of his patients. Lord knows what a goddess was doing at a hospital, but, you know, that's why I'm here."

Now Charlotte took her turn, telling Erin all about her own childhood. Unlike Erin, the girl had been sent to several different private boarding schools, never getting much of a chance to just enjoy staying at home with her dad. Because of her dyslexia, it had been difficult for the girl to do well in school. When she had left her home to come here, she was only in the third grade, even though she'd been twelve at the time. Apparently, this was pretty common among demigods, although some of the stronger ones would get expelled on top of being held back.

Erin felt sad for her friend. Her mom had insisted on homeschooling her after _he_ had some kind of incident at a swanky private school_. _Her mom, of course, had been overly lenient with the grading, so she'd never thought of her own learning disabilities as too much of a burden. Life as a stereotypical demigod seemed tough. Charlotte definitely didn't deserve that. No wonder she wanted to stay in New Rome once she'd retired.

"If you guys are done spilling your guts," Shayna cut in obnoxiously. "We're pretty much here."

Erin looked up to find that the city boundaries were but a few yards away. It was kind of strange actually. Usually, there would be smaller buildings on the outskirts that would gradually grow taller and taller until suddenly you were in the heart of the city. Here, it was like there was a line in the sand. On their side of the line, they might as well have been out in the middle of rural nowhere. On the other side, the city started abruptly, and immediately, you felt like you were in the heart of it.

"Hello Charlotte," a friendly voice said coming from out of nowhere. Erin looked around severely confused for a minute before realizing that it was coming from a grey armless statue that was positioned on the side of the road just outside the border of the city.

"Hey Terminus," Charlotte replied jovially to the statue. "How's work coming along?"

"Those pesky Dordan boys came by earlier. They were trying to smuggle a knife into my city. The nerve!" the statue, Terminus, replied exasperated. "Have no fear though. I pried it out of their hands before they could do anything troublesome." The statue continued on mumbling about how unscrupulous the two twins were.

Erin stared at the statue, her confusion growing. "Um, I'm sorry," she cut in. "_You_ pried it out of their hands?" Shayna snickered beside me as if she had just made some kind of grave mistake. She decided it was best to ignore her.

"Yes, I did," the statue said staring at Erin as if she were the dumb one.

"But you don't have-" she began.

"This is Terminus, Erin," Charlotte interrupted hastily. Erin glanced over at her friend, who quickly shot her a warning look. "He's the god of borders." _And we don't bring up his lack of arms_, she added with her eyes.

"Ah, this is the newest camper that I've heard so much about," Terminus said disdainfully. The statue's eyes were giving her a distasteful once over.

"Yeah," Erin responded feeling like she'd just been insulted. Suddenly, she felt a strong desire to ask the god if he'd ever been to the doctor because she was sure that someone could probably set him up with some prosthetic arms.

Charlotte seemed to sense this though, and started talking before Erin had another chance to. "Right well, we would like to visit the city today," she requested.

"Of course," the god replied. "Weapons?"

This time Shayna finally decided to cut in. "We didn't bring any," she said definitively.

Terminus didn't look convinced, and Erin didn't blame him. If she'd learned anything about Shayna over the past few days, it was that she never went anywhere without a knife, sword, spear, or in general any sort of sharp object. "I suppose you won't mind if I ask you to take off your left boot then would you?"

Shayna scowled and reached into her shoe, pulling out a shiny engraved dagger. She threw it rudely at Terminus' feet, lodging the blade into the ground. "Happy?" she asked him.

"I simply don't understand you demigods. Why do you even try bringing your weapons into my city? I am stronger than all of you. I swear though you children of Mars and Mercury are the worst." He continued to mumble to himself for another minute before catching Charlotte's eye and adding, "You may enter."

New Rome was quite possibly the prettiest city she'd ever been in. The buildings were all made out of old reddish sandy colored stone with fabric awnings creating shade in their plots. The cobble stone streets stretched forward twisting and turning through alley ways. The city lacked the smell of pollution, instead giving off the distinct flavor of baked bread. There were people in the streets of all ages. An elderly couple was sitting on a bench on the side of the street; a middle aged woman was pulling her toddler down the street by the hand; and of course, there were several groups of teenagers walking around in purple SPQR shirts. She felt like she had come home for the first time in years.

"Wow," Erin found herself saying aloud as she gazed around wide eyed.

Shayna groaned beside her. "Great," she was muttering to herself. "Now we've got another one."

Charlotte steered them through the streets, pushing through crowds of people. On the side of the pathway, half donkey things stood begging for spare drachmas. One of them came up and started asking Shayna for money, which of course was a big mistake.

"Hey Shay, buddy, pal, how ya doing?" the donkey thing asked slinging a dirty arm around the girl. Shayna proceeded to grab his arm and flip him over onto his back.

"I dare you to touch me again you filthy faun," she growled at him. The creatures, fauns as Shayna had called them, left them alone after that.

Finally, Charlotte turned a bend and led them into a small open shop called Fashion for Fighters. The minute they walked through the threshold, Shayna groaned again. "I'm not going to spend my day off in the city in _this_ store," she complained.

Charlotte shot her an annoyed glance. "Well Erin needs to buy some cloths, so we sort of have to go in her," she pointed out.

"I'm sure Erin is quite independent. We don't need to babysit her everywhere," Shayna said moodily crossing her arms. There was a fire in her eyes as she stared down Charlotte, daring her to challenge her.

Erin was truly shocked when Charlotte seemed to accept. "You don't have to come if you don't want to Shay," she said curtly. Shayna's jaw almost dropped to the floor when the words left her best friends mouth.

"Fine," she sneered in retaliation her voice bitter but clearly still in shock. "I'll meet you two at Fez's restaurant when you're done."

"Ok," Charlotte huffed. Erin shifted awkwardly to her other foot. The two girls had been bickering non-stop since she'd met them, but something about the way the two were acting now told her that this was an actual fight. Shayna nimbly turned on her heels and stalked out of the room, leaving Erin alone with Charlotte and a store full of cloths.

"Come on Erin," Charlotte said with a slightly deflated sigh. Erin turned taking in the shop. It most certainly wasn't the conventional store that Erin was used to seeing back in Cincinnati. There weren't any manikins posing with trendy outfits on in the windows, and the cloths didn't seem to be organized in any way shape or form. Actually, it was sort of just a room with seven aisles of racks upon racks of clothing with a cashier in the front.

Charlotte navigated through the maze of clothing like a seasoned veteran, passing by a rack of purple and white togas, a rainbow of SPQR shirts, and other various camp related articles of fabric to an area in the back that actually had normal things. After Erin had stood there sort of glazing over the overwhelming choices for a solid five minutes, Charlotte took it upon herself to just start plucking things off the rack and handing them to Erin to hold.

"You know I don't exactly have any money to pay for any of this," Erin informed the other girl. Back in Cincinnati, she probably would have just stolen anything she needed, but she had a feeling that wouldn't fly here. Especially since the cashier had thirteen lines burned into his forearm. She had no doubt she'd leave the store with a lot of bruises, if she tried to pull anything over on him.

"You get paid for being in the legion," Charlotte said. "One denarii for every week here. You haven't been working all that long, but if you ask them to put it on your credit, they'll just take the costs out of your pay."

Erin thought on that for a little bit. She'd been told that at a minimum, each legionnaire had to work for ten years. So then if there were fifty two weeks in a year, and she's getting paid a denarii a week… she was going to be rich by the time she got out of the legion.

When Charlotte handed her a sufficient amount of cloths, the two made their way back towards the dressing rooms in the back. Erin thought that it was a good time to ask her some questions.

"So, um, what's up with Shayna?" Erin asked curiously.

Charlotte sighed, her red lips twisting into a wry smile. "She's just been kind of moody lately. She always is whenever we get new people coming around," she explained. Erin examined the other girl's freckled face. It was clear that she and Shayna shared some kind of special bond, though Erin wasn't quite sure what it was that made the two so close.

"But she can't get too upset every time somebody new comes, she'd never be happy," Erin said logically as she stepped into small dressing room to try some things on.

"No," Charlotte agreed from the other side of the door. "But you're sort of intruding on her space. No offense or anything."

Erin frowned at herself in the full length mirror on the wall. The sweater that Charlotte was having her try on was a bit too… cutesy for her taste.

"I'm not trying to interfere with her life or anything," Erin said honestly. If Shayna didn't want to be with her, then all she had to do was leave. Erin wasn't following the girl or anything.

"It's really my fault you know," Charlotte murmured as she handed Erin another shirt.

Immediately, Erin jumped to the girl's defense. "You can't blame yourself for anything she does," she said sort of harshly. Charlotte just shook her head and gave Erin a sad smile.

"Yes I can. We were at Lupa's at the same time, and we came to camp together. Shayna was the one with the recommendation letter, and she demanded that that Andy stand for me, if he wanted her to be in the Third. We're like sisters, and Shayna doesn't really want to share. Especially because you haven't done anything to impress her yet," Charlotte explained as Erin disappeared into the dressing room again.

She liked the shirt that she was trying on now much better than the last. It was a simple mint green button down shirt. She stepped out of the room to show Charlotte who nodded approvingly.

"What do you mean, I didn't do anything impressive?" Erin asked feeling slightly offended. Up until now, she thought she had done well during siege the other night. After all, she had owned Noah during their sword fight.

"Well, you sort of got Shayna's expectations up when you were bragging during lunch, and then you barely held your position during siege," Charlotte pointed, her eyebrows knitting in distress as the girl worried about whether she was being too harsh.

"But I beat No- er Wood," Erin said. She mentally kicked herself for almost using Noah's first name. They weren't supposed to know each other that well, she reminded herself. It was difficult though to think of him by his last name. They'd only spent one night together, but he was the first person in the entire legion that didn't make her feel like she was the new kid. Throughout their conversation he had treated her as an equal in the task that the two were undertaking.

"Yeah, and Wood is a member of the Fifth. You could beat the entire Fifth Cohort single handedly and Shayna wouldn't be impressed," Charlotte said conclusively.

"Then I'll just have to find someone else to beat up," Erin joked with a grin. Truthfully, she wasn't as concerned about proving herself to Shayna as she usually would be. After all, if she found the traitor that Noah had told her about, then that should be enough of a demonstration of her capabilities to satisfy the girl.

The two made their way back towards the counter after deciding on two pairs of jeans, a pair of jean shorts, and three different shirts. It felt nice to be able to say she owned something again, even if it was just clothing. She felt like she was finally building her life back up.

With their shopping bags in hand, the two girls made their way towards the restaurant that they were supposed to be meeting Shayna at. The street seemed to have gotten busier as time had passed. Teenagers and college students in purple shirts were twice as common as they were earlier. Most of the legionnaires must have come down to enjoy the prize of their win in siege the other night.

That was when she saw him. A scrawny boy, with copper hair that was sticking straight up was wobbling down the street carrying a heavy box in his lanky teenage arms. She recognized him, of course, as the boy who had been with Noah that first day that she'd arrived here, and during the game of siege. Quinn, Noah had said his name was.

"Isn't the Fifth supposed to be back in Camp working?" Erin asked Charlotte. The other girl glanced quickly towards Quinn and shrugged.

"Sometimes you'll get assigned jobs down here helping out different shop owners. He's probably just…" she began. That was when the poor kid went tumbling to the ground, the weight of the box becoming too much for him. "Oh gods," Charlotte muttered to herself as she rushed over to the fallen kid. Erin was suddenly very happy that her friend was such a good samaritan as she hastily followed the girl.

"Hunter is going to kill me," the boy, Quinn, was saying as he looked down at the mess he'd made, his face aghast. A bunch of packaged SPQR snow globes were spilling out of the top of the cardboard box onto the street.

"Do you need help?" Charlotte asked the boy in her concerned slightly motherly voice.

"No that's o-," Quinn started to reply when he looked up to see who was talking to him. He didn't stop talking when he saw Charlotte though; it was Erin's face that made him pause. "You know what? Sure I could use a hand," he said grinning at Erin.

Charlotte immediately dropped to her knees as and started to pick up the various snow globes that weren't already broken while Quinn started to gather pieces of broken glass. If Erin wasn't mistaken, the boy seemed to purposely be taking his sweet time cleaning up the street. Not one to sit around while the other two cleaned, Erin went ahead and started to right the box re-organizing the globes that hadn't spilled out.

"So, you're Erin Foster huh?" Quinn said glancing up at her smugly. Erin nodded narrowing her eyes suspiciously. Where was he going with this? He knew exactly who she was and probably a little more, being that Noah must have given him the step by step summary of their conversation the other night. Thankfully, Charlotte was picking up glass that had shattered a few feet away and wasn't paying attention to either of them.

"Yeah Noah told me all about you," the boy went on. "He's got his pants all twisted in a knot over you all right."

"Yeah?" Erin said quite confused.

"Oh yeah," Quinn exclaimed, all too happy to carry on with the issue. "I've never seen him rant for so long about how infuriating someone was before." Erin just smiled to herself. Noah had gotten really flustered with her the other night, and to be honest, she had really enjoyed herself. He was just one of those guys that was too easy to tease.

Of course, the minute Quinn caught her smiling, his own grin grew smugger. "Actually, I think I have seen someone make him that frustrated before," he corrected himself. "But that didn't count, since it was me. You're the first _girl_ that has ever irritated him to the point that he's come to me about it."

"What's your point?" Erin inquired quite confused. She felt like he was implying something, but she was completely missing the joke. She hated when things went over her head like this.

Quinn looked over his shoulder his grin widening significantly. Erin followed his gaze to find Noah standing a few feet off frozen in his spot. All the color had drained out of his face as he saw Erin talking to Quinn, making his dark hair pop out against his skin. The two boys held eye contact for a moment as Noah's expression darkened, warning his friend against something. Seconds later he was setting his box down and wedging himself between Quinn and Erin, purposely blocking his friend from her.

"How nice of you to join the party Noah," his friend cried happily. "We were just talking about you!"

"I got the schedule," he muttered to her without making eye contact and purposely ignoring Quinn. Erin glanced down to see a piece of paper poking out of Noah's black sweatshirt.

"Well," she said a loudly enough for Charlotte to hear her. "I think that we've salvaged most of it."

She rose up from the spot that she'd been crouching down and brushed herself off. Moments later, Charlotte had rejoined them, and Quinn and Noah were closing the opened box up again.

"You guys should really be more careful," Charlotte chastised Quinn. "If someone saw that you could get in a lot of trouble."

"Oh, I'm sure we are already in a lot of trouble," Quinn piped with a happy grin as he heaved the patched up box back up into his arms.

"We should get back to Shayna before she gets any more peeved with us," Erin told Charlotte. As they turned to keep walking Erin 'accidentally' brushed up against Noah, taking the piece of paper from his pocket with a trained sleight of hand. "Sorry," she muttered quietly to mask it. With that the two girls started making their way down the street.

Noah watched as Erin went, waiting until she was out of sight to check his pocket. His muscles tensed in surprise when he realized that she had successfully taken the schedule off of him. He had at least hoped that he would have noticed when she did it being that he'd expected it. The words of his mother echoed around in his head, _there is something in her memory, something that she doesn't even realize is there, that will be crucial in finding the defector_. Up until then, he'd thought it had to do with _Astriger_'s passed owner, but in that moment, he dwelled on something else. No one, not even a daughter of Mercury, was simply born that skilled at pickpocketing. She must have had some practice before in the past, and well, it wasn't unheard of for petty crooks to see bits and pieces of bigger crimes yet not realize it. Noah shook his head, telling himself that he was jumping to illogical conclusions. It wasn't worth speculating the little things. No, he would wait until he knew a bit more about the mysterious girl. That was when he would have to man up, and get her to talk.


	7. Chapter 7

Noah followed his Centurion up the hill with perfect posture. He kept his weapon at attention and his eyes forward, just like the perfect legionnaire would. Nothing was so much as a hair out of place. That's the way things went when you were assigned duty with Hunter. With his attentive eye constantly searching Noah for some sort of fatal imperfection, the consequences of slacking would be unthinkable. It was painstaking and annoying honestly. Of course, he had sort of volunteered for the job.

Hunter and he were making a trip up to Temple Hill to make their Cohort's daily tribute to the gods. It was a ceremonial procedure involving a lot of walking and at least twelve or so apples that each Cohort was required to do. No one dared to say the words aloud, but basically the entire camp thought the job was a joke. That is, everyone except Hunter, who took the task _very_ seriously.

That day Quinn had been scheduled to accompany Hunter up to the hill, but apparently the two had gotten into a fight when the younger had talked back to his older brother during marching drills. Quinn really didn't want to get stuck with the Centurion for a solid hour. Noah had no intention of taking his friends place. He most certainly didn't want to be the one to get stuck with Hunter, but Quinn had black mailed him.

Ever since he'd debriefed him on his chat with Erin, Quinn hadn't seemed to stop it with the teasing. Every time they passed the Third, his friend would elbow him and start wiggling his eyebrows. When Noah had complained to his friend about her blatant criminality, the boy wouldn't stop smiling at him like an idiot. Then when Quinn had dropped that box in the street and Noah had caught Erin helping him. Gods, all you had to do was take one look at the kid's face, and it was pretty clear what he was talking with her about. Thankfully, Erin's face had been twisted with confusion, so whatever innuendos Quinn had been making about their relationship status had gone over her head.

Noah made Quinn swear on the river of Styx that if he took the boy's place today on temple duty, he at least wouldn't make any more suggestive comments about the pair in front of her. While he'd still have to find someway to make him stop with the inuendos in front of everyone else, it was a start.

The worst part was that it wasn't even true. The girl's personality was downright obnoxious. To begin with, everything that came out of her mouth was probably incriminating. Then it also didn't really help that he was ninety percent sure that she was keeping a relatively dark and serious secret that may or may not be hindering the task that his mother gave him. Sure she was a pretty girl, but some of her behavior was inexcusable. Quinn was being ridiculous.

Not that it mattered, at this point. As of right now the only thing that mattered was somehow not getting in trouble with Hunter during the next hour or so. They were coming up to the different temples at the moment, the closest one being the huge red open pavilion with a huge Roman style arch opening and smaller intricately designed columns spaced periodically around it. In the center of the temple was a huge statue of an angry muscular Roman guy adorning a toga and pointing a huge sword towards the sky. The building was called the Mars Ultura, and was one of the required temples for tribute.

"Hut two," Hunter chided tersely signaling Noah to speed up. Quickly, Noah fell back into stride with the older boy, closing the small gap that had formed between the two. If he was with Mia, or in another Cohort, they would have just stuck a few apples on the alter and left. Hunter, however, forced Noah to walk up with him to Mars' foot and kneel.

"Mars we hope you accept our humble gift," Hunter said in a loud powerful voice that echoed off the corners of the room. "Please help us guide our Cohort back to its rightful place of honor among your ranks."

Noah bowed his head in respect and tried not to think about anything that might be considered rude. He personally didn't care much for the war god. After all, the guy clearly didn't give two hoots for him or his friends. If he did, then maybe the Fifth wouldn't get beat up so much. Still, whenever he was in the temple he always had the feeling that he was being watched.

After kneeling there for another moment with their heads bowed, Hunter rose to his feet indicating to Noah that he should follow. Their next stop was Jupiter's temple, being that he was the second (or if you really wanted to argue it- the first) most important god in the camp.

As the two walked over towards the largest temple on the hill, they passed by a statue, about a foot taller than Noah, of another Roman looking man looking holding a long staff in his right hand. The staff had two snakes spiraling around the center pylon, marking it uniquely as the caduceus- Mercury's symbol of power.

"One sec Hunter," Noah said snatching one of the apples out of the netted sac that he was carrying. He jogged over and placed the apple at Mercury's foot next to a few others most likely left there by one of his children.

_Please help me, and your daughter, with our task, _Noah prayed glancing timidly into the statue's pupil-less eye. _My mom told me that she knows something important. Guide me the next time we talk. Help me to her to open up._

With a nod of satisfaction he returned to his Centurion, who was crossing his arms and giving Noah a stern stare. "What was that about?" he asked clearly confused. Thankfully, he didn't look all that mad for wasting an apple or something. He couldn't really, being that essentially Noah had just walked over to make an extra sacrifice. He should get extra credit or something.

"Um," Noah started, stumbling over his words. He should have prepared a lie when he had gone over to the statue. "I-er- my dad. He was supposed to come on my sixteenth birthday. He never showed, and you know Mercury being the god of travel and all…" It was a brilliant lie, the type of thing that Hunter would fall for so easily as the Centurion knew all about Noah's home life. He was quite proud that he'd pulled that out of his back pocket on such short notice.

"Ah," Hunter muttered cutting Noah off abruptly with a quick nod. "I see." That was the best part of the lie. Hunter would feel too awkward to press the topic any further.

The two boys continued to the Jupiter temple, which gleaming under the chill of the sun. Just under the grandiose awning, was a huge golden statue of Jupiter wearing a real purple toga. In his hand was a huge thunderbolt. The power that emanated from the power was humbling.

Hunter kept his eyes down as he offered Jupiter all of the remaining apples save one that he saved for their final stop at Apollo's shrine. Just as before the two kneeled in front of Jupiter and asked the god for strength for their Cohort in the future. As usual Noah kept his head down out of respect.

Suddenly, there was the sound of feet by the entrance. Instinctively, Noah's head whipped around towards the noise, his gut feeling the slight tinge of embarrassment. Upon seeing the skinny blonde haired boy standing in the entrance, the feeling disappeared.

"I see the Fifth is on their knees, pleading for their honor, as per usual," the boy said in a snotty high pitch voice. Noah stared at the kid dumbfounded. He wasn't quite sure he had heard the kid right.

"Augur, I would watch your words. Remember that you are speaking to two of your superiors," Hunter warned him. The Centurion had undergone a swift transformation from the Roman devotee that had been on his knees before Jupiter moments before. Now every corner of his face had become more sever, his golden brown complexion darkening. The boy, Octavian, had just insulted Hunter's most prized value, and he would not take it lightly.

The eleven year old smirked slightly amused at Hunter's boldness. "Oh yeah? Don't pretend that you don't know what your colleges think of you. You could swear up and down that I was the devil's spawn and they wouldn't care. You're a joke," he sneered as his mouth twisted into a cruel knowing smirk.

Hunter's anger was written clear as day across his face. You knew it was bad when the Centurion's copper hair started to stick up the way Quinn's did. It meant he was so infuriated he didn't have the attention span to keep all of his little quirks under wraps. This was very very bad.

"You stupid kid," Hunter spat his fists clenching so tight that Noah could imagine the boy's nails digging into his palms and drawing blood. "You haven't even been here long enough to tell Jupiter from Mars. You have no right to throw those insults around like you are invincible because believe me you aren't," Hunter fumed.

Noah held his breath, praying that the Octavian kid wouldn't make things any worse. That was when the kid laughed. Like all out, threw his head back and sang out to the sky type of laugh. Oh gods, life in the Fifth was going to be downright miserable for a solid month now. "I have read a lot of entrails since I got here, Daughtry. I've learned a good bit about you, and let me tell you, you're future isn't pretty. In fact I'd be watching my back pretty carefully if I were you," Octavian said grinning. Noah fought the urge to shrink back into the background and just let Hunter loose, but he knew better. If this went on, there would be a duel, and Hunter would shoot this kid. Noah knew that Hunter would regret that, even if the duel followed every regulation set out by the legion. Hunter just wasn't a killer. Anyway, what Octavian just said held more weight than Hunter even understood. The kid had just flat out threatened Hunter, and from anyone else that would've been fine. But this boy wasn't just anyone, he was Noah's number one suspect for treason. The minute he uttered those words this petty fight became serious.

"Watch it augur," Noah said trying to come off as threatening. Octavian's grin faltered and his eyes passed over to Noah. Then he hesitated, Noah didn't know why but he did. His gut twisted. _Gods, _he thought_, he must know._

"This isn't any of your business… Noah," Octavian said giving him a hard stare.

"You walk in here, insult my Cohort, my brother, and then you say it's none of my business?" Noah asked calmly raising an eyebrow. "I'd rethink that just slightly."

Octavian frowned at Noah, his scrawny shoulders fell slightly. For a second Noah thought he saw something of a sad expression cross the boy's face before it was replaced with an obnoxious arrogant look. "You don't think I don't know what you really want?" he asked directing his question at Hunter.

The Centurion opened his mouth to retort when Noah cut him off. "What we want is for bratty kids like you to stop talking about things that are bigger than them. The Fifth Cohort is eons old, and let me tell you, the ghosts around here, well they don't like to be insulted. Hunter doesn't even need to have a chat with Carlton and Leila to screw you over. I'm sure all we'll have to do is have a chat with Vitellius, and you're a goner," Noah threatened showing off his best evil looking smirk. He was quite proud of himself actually. Usually, he really wasn't a great person around when you needed someone to have your back.

Octavian ignored Noah's words completely and stared at Hunter with a good amount of hatred. "You just want my job. I've heard what people have said. You've been gunning to become augur since you got here. I heard you thought it might actually bring some honor to your pitiful Cohort," he said crossing his arms as he waited for Hunter to react. Noah's gut twisted nervously as he watched Hunter's shaking hand slowly reach back and gently touch his bow. Hatred like nothing Noah had ever seen before radiated from his brown eyes. He felt his own heart beating rapidly as the tension in the air grew. The worst part was that Octavian was grinning like he wanted the other kid to do it, or rather like he thought very strongly that he wouldn't. Noah knew his Centurion better than that. Suddenly, Hunter's eyes flickered away from Octavian over to Noah. He took that as a chance to silently plead for peace. To his surprise, Hunter steadied his hand as a new look of determination calmed his features

"I should kill you for saying that," he said to Octavian. With that he turned exiting Jupiter's temple and walking briskly down the path way. The augur stood there with his arms crossed and an extremely arrogant look painted across his face as he watched Hunter walk out. Noah hastily ran out after his Centurion before anything else happened.

By the time he caught up with Hunter, they were half way down temple hill. It was only then that the Centurion's shoulder's sagged and his step lost its pep. Noah slowed down with him feeling immensely awkward.

"Thanks Noah," Hunter said after a minute. Noah shoved his hands into his pockets and averted his eyes.

"Er, your welcome?" he offered up hoping he didn't sound as uncomfortable as he felt.

"No, I mean it. You've been like a second brother to me for three years. I really appreciate what you said back there. It meant a lot," Hunter persisted grabbing Noah's arm and staring him in the eye squarely.

"Um, well, it's true," Noah muttered. Hunter's lips twisted a little into a sad smile. His urgent grip on Noah's arm relaxed and his limb fell to his side. For once, the weight of Hunter's responsibility showed. Noah had never thought about how hard things must be for Hunter. He dedicated everything to restoring honor to his Cohort, and to this day he had received nothing but spite and disappointment in return. He was rejected by his entire Cohort for pushing everyone so hard, and he was belittled by his equals in the senate. In a legion full of two hundred demigods, Hunter walked alone.

Hunter smiled gratefully at Noah and sighed holding up the bag he'd been carrying that still held the one leftover apple. "We never got to visit Apollo," he said unhappily.

Noah smiled. That would be one of Hunter's priorities. "I guess we should go back then?" he asked internally hoping that Hunter would say no.

"Yes we do," Hunter replied sternly.

Noah sighed and followed Quinn's brother back up the hill, praying that they wouldn't run into the augur again.


	8. Chapter 8

Erin wasn't expecting to wake up with nothing to wear. After all, she'd only spent her entire Sunday shopping in New Rome, an experience that she highly recommended. Unfortunately, she hadn't anticipated the repercussions of showing up the two biggest pranksters in the entire school. Well lesson learned: don't upset the twins, the will get you back.

That morning Erin had woken up, taken three steps over towards her trunk to throw on some mesh shorts and her purple shirt, and then found herself hanging upside down from a rope, her cloths chest completely empty. Shayna had found it hilarious. She had received no help from anyone getting down from the rope that was lassoed around her ankle. Apparently legion protocol said that getting out of these situations solo built character. Erin made a mental note to always have a knife on her person, untying the rope with her hands had been exhausting.

Thankfully that mess was over now. Charlotte had let her borrow some old cloths for the day, and soon the Third Cohort was sitting around in the mess hall munching on various breakfast foods. Erin sat across from Shayna, and diagonal to Charlotte, keeping her eyes on the door waiting patiently for the two boys to come in. By the time they arrived, she was getting a bit antsy.

The two boys waltzed into the hall gleefully, two innocent smiles adorning their highly suspicious faces. Erin stood up the moment she saw them, meeting them in the middle, and immediately grabbing each one by the collar. She wasn't quite strong enough to lift each boy of the ground using only one hand, but if she could have, she would have.

"Where are my cloths squirts," Erin said smiling sweetly at them like the proper sister she was.

"I'm sorry?" Max asked, the most fake confused expression riddling his features. Erin pulled the boy a bit closer narrowing her leaf green eyes. She wanted to be sure that he could feel her furious breath running down his neck.

"I think your wearing them sis. Sure your feeling ok?" Marcus added, his voice barely discernible from that of his brother. Then they both broke off into identical crooked grins. If that didn't scream guilt, then nothing did.

"You know the ones you stole from my trunk last night while everyone was sleeping. I bet you picked the lock with that knife on your belt, Max. In the mean time Marcus was setting up the rope trap. It might have impressed me too. Except that you accidentally left this under my bed," Erin said, deciding to go with it. With her right hand she dropped Max and reached into her back pocket, pulling out some kind of special circular charm, that almost looked like a coin. In the middle, Mercury's caduceus was etched into the tarnished silver.

Of course, the boys had executed the prank flawlessly. They didn't leave so much as a finger print at the scene of the crime. Erin had pick pocketed them a few seconds ago when she had initially grabbed at them. Now she appeared to have the evidence she needed to pin them for it, leaving them no choice but to confess.

"I swear I had that a minute ago," Marcus squeaked fumbling around in his pockets. Well, she had wiped the grin clean off of his face, replacing his cockiness with a deep red embarrassed blush. Meanwhile, Max's jaw dropped as he glared at his brother's incompetence.

"You left _that_ under her bed!" Max said incredulously, his mouth still agape. Marcus furrowed his eyebrows as he stared at the charm. He didn't even bother responding to his brother. Erin suppressed a smile. Gosh, these two were so predictable.

"Now back to the matter at hand. My cloths?" Erin reminded them tapping her foot impatiently and raising an eyebrow. The boys glanced down at their feet defeated.

"We stashed everything in the alley next to the forge," Marcus muttered unhappily. Erin smiles appreciatively flicking the coin in the air. Max lunged his hand after it catching it in his palm easily.

"Now I hope you two learned your lesson. Don't mess with your big sister," Erin chimes behind herself as she practically skipped back to the breakfast table. Charlotte was smirking down at her plate. Clearly she was impressed with how Erin had handled the boys yet again. Honestly, it really wasn't a big deal to Mercury's daughter. It was just a matter of understanding really. There had once been a time when Erin had been in those two boy's shoes, and after years of being out smarted over and over and over again, she had finally figured things out.

"I'm heading over to the forge to go get my stuff before someone else steals it," Erin told Shayna and Charlotte.

"Take your time," Shayna muttered under her breath. Erin chose to ignore her, instead giving Charlotte a friendly wave and heading out.

Outside, the sun was starting to rise. The clouds had turned a light shade of red, streaking across the horizon. The forge wasn't all that far away, just down a hill and to the left. It wasn't that bad of a walk, Erin anticipated being back to finish her breakfast soon enough. As she exited the mess hall door she bumped into someone hard.

"Sorry," she half shouted on contact. She turned to help up whoever she'd knocked over, and upon seeing the shock of unique copper colored hair, she smiled. "Oh hey Qui-" She stopped herself. This boy wasn't Quinn, he was significantly older, lacking the gangly limbs that she associated with Noah's friend. The boy on the ground took her hand and rose to his feet.

"Hunter," he introduced himself stiffly, as if the entire encounter was disrupting his schedule. "Quinn's brother."

"Ah," Erin said, mentally berating herself for slipping. As far as everyone else knew, the only time she had been near Quinn was when she had passed out arriving here. They were never supposed to have really even ever met, and they definitely shouldn't be on a first name basis. Crap. Hunter's deep brown eyes regarded her for a minute, a hint of some unidentifiable strangeness lurking in the depths of his face. Then he shook his head, and whatever she saw was gone.

"Well, I'll be on my way then," he said.

"Right, see you around then," she replied hurrying away before she screwed anything else up. You'd have thought she was Noah, she'd been so awkward. Geez, that was just bad all around.

Pushing the encounter to the back of her mind, she hurried forward, semi-jogging down the hill to the forge. Just were she thought it'd be, sat a large windowless brick building with only one very Roman arched entryway. A red glow radiated from just inside the doorway giving off an intense heat that Erin could feel from her place several feet away. Beside that building was another almost identical one, except the second wasn't lit up the sam way. In fact, it looked down right abandoned.

Of course, Erin wasn't looking for the forge. In between the two buildings was a thin space, just big enough for an exceptionally thin person to squeeze into. Quickly, Erin hurried down to the edge of the alley and peered into the space. Just as she was promised, a few feet from the entry way was a plastic bag, presumably with her cloths in it.

Taking great care, Erin gradually slid herself into the alley, her back pressed against one wall, and her front against the other. If she was just a little bit heavier, she wouldn't have fit, but thankfully, the excessive exercise habits of Camp Jupiter wasn't exactly hurting her figure. She wiggled her way carefully down the ally, stopping when she could hook her foot around the handle to the bag. Then she started her way back to open space.

That's when she heard the foot steps.

She froze just before she burst out of the alley. It was probably just one of Vulcan's kids. They all lived in the forge, and were the only ones crazy enough to miss breakfast to get some extra time working on their metal smithing skills. Then she saw scrawny figure stride into the forge's entry way with an undeniable sense of purpose to it. What was Octavian doing in the forges at this time of day? Andy had told her that once you had a title, like augur, you didn't have to participate in some of the basic skill work shops that you wouldn't find useful. Of all the campers here, he was probably one of the few who could get away with never setting foot in the place.

That was it, she couldn't resist the chance to do a little spy work. Leaving the cloths by the entrance to the ally, Erin carefully made her way to the entrance of the forge and slipped inside. A wave of heat immediately blew her hair back as she walked down a short stone passage way into the main room. She'd only been into the forge once, but she knew that she was going to have to be careful if she wasn't going to be noticed.

The main room was a mess of tools. Four huge fire pits were ablaze at each corner, a variety of long iron prongs and such resting half in them. Little wooden benches were nailed in place a few feet away from each fire, and a steel counter wrapped around the walls. Half made weapons were strew everywhere, each with some form of initial or identifying symbol roughly etched into the material. Octavian was hunched over the fire pit in the far left corner, his purple shirt already sticking to his thin frame.

Erin ducked under one of the steel tables swiftly before he could notice her, and picked up a huge round shield that was lying on the floor to hide behind. Gradually, she started hobbling forward, pausing every so often when Octavian turned, so that she wouldn't be noticed. When she thought she was within a reasonable distance, she peered out from behind the shield, to see what he was doing.

Hmmm, he was holding one of the iron prongs in the fire, a lump of imperial gold on the end of it. So it looked like he was making some kind of weapon after all. Well, whatever it was, he couldn't intend for it to be too big. She imagined that a proper sword would take twice that amount of metal to be crafted properly. Then again, she also was pretty sure that Octavian knew as much as she did about-which definitely wasn't enough to make a good sword.

Erin took another half step forward. She was still crouched under the long silver table, with a shield to her left and a sword to her right, and it was getting a bit uncomfortable, but her curiosity was getting the better of her.

"I don't get what you want me to see," Octavian suddenly mumbled loudly to himself. His voice caught her off guard, and for a moment Erin's heart stopped in her chest. Only when he turned back to the fire did she allow herself to relax again.

Suddenly there was another set of footsteps at the door, and this time it was Octavian who went rigid. With a deep scowl set in his face he gently put the lump of metal he was working with on a cooling table, and turned around. "What do you want," he sneered.

"Dude calm down," the new comer said in a deep voice. Erin vaguely recognized the dark russet skin and jet black curls of the boy who spoke. If she remembered correctly, he was another guy in the First, probably a friend of Octavian's. By the way he was slouching, he couldn't have been too alarmed fo find the augur here. "I just thought you should know that Carlton was heading up to your prophecy room to check on how you were doing. I mean, you won't get in trouble for being here or anything, but I kind of got the impression that you had wanted to have a chat with the Preator?"

"Crap," Octavian breathed, any form of animosity washing away from his features. "Thanks for the warning."

With that the two boys hurried out of the room sprinting to go meet Preator Carlton before they missed him. Erin climbed out from under her hiding spot stretching out and brushing some soot off of her. She'd have to apologize later to Charlotte about getting all of her stuff so dirty. Oh well. Letting herself relax a little, she moseyed over to the area that Octavian had been working. The lump of gold was still on the floor where he'd left it smoking on the ground. It wasn't in any sort of recognizable shape. Octavian must not of gotten very far into working on it, what a shame.

With a sigh, Erin turned to head back out the door, there wasn't anything in here that was going to be helpful. That's when she saw it. A blank white mask, made to mold around your features, making you faceless. She froze, her hands shaking violently as the sight hit her like a slap in the face. Taking things one step at a time she slowly moved across the room to the mask, gingerly taking it into her quaking fingers. There was a slight notch in it, just in between the two eye holes.

_Clang_

It fell to the floor, slipping right through her fingers. Suddenly her sight was blurred, the overwhelming heat that surrounded her became suffocating. She had to get out, away from that mask, but the grief that she'd been swallowing for weeks was suddenly debilitating. Her very limbs threatened to capsize as she stood there, tears streaming down her dirty face. She never imagined that the murder could be here, at Camp Jupiter, a place that was seemingly untouchable. He could be a friend, an enemy... an augur. Good gods, this mask, it was right in Octavian's work space.

She forced herself to think about that night. The moon shining brightly upon the three of them, as the masked attacker circled around them. _Astriger_ was gripped in her brothers hand, reflecting the night in its glowing blade. The fight had seemed so manageable then. He had parried every swipe, retaliated every stab, the two swordsmen were equal in every way. And then there was suddenly a bronze knife ripping through his stomach, sticking out his back. The blood stain started to grow out from the wound, soaking through his cloths, and starting to pool on the ground. His body toppled limply, like a doll that had never known life. She had cried out to the gods that night, asked, prayed, demanded for them to give him back to her. But they didn't oblige. She didn't think any one was even listening. Her brother, who had been beside through everything, was gone forever.

She never even noticed that the murderer had her brother's body lying dead on the ground, she hadn't even cared to mind the attacker. So what if he killed her too, she didn't have anything else to live for at that moment. Nothing mattered, except kneeling beside his body, hopelessly trying to revive him. Maybe she had subconsciously thought she would one day hunt him down, after she had learned to fight for herself. But never once did she imagine that she'd have to face him here and now, so soon after his death. It was too much for her.

Erin's next thought was to run. She had to tell someone, one of the Praetors probably, but why should they listen. All she had was a mask in her hand, and a murder accusation on one of her fellow legionaries. Loneliness started to rip through her. Then she remembered Noah. He wouldn't question her in the slightest. No, he would listen, and nod, and be awkward. But he would be on her side, and that was what mattered.

Her feet started moving for her. Without even a thought towards the cloths she had left in the alley, she sprinted up the hill towards the armory. Noah wouldn't be in the mess hall where everyone else was. He was on punishment for falling behind during marching drills yesterday. He was supposed to be polishing weapons.

When Erin entered the door, and saw him rubbing a spear with a piece of clot, his jet black hair falling into his eyes, everything- the grief, sadness, loneliness- all of it, came pouring out of her. "Noah," she croaked her eyes over flowing with tears. He turned, a look of confusion wiping over his thin features as he saw her. Almost immediately his expression twisted as he registered her pain.

"Erin?" he said cautiously. He'd already thrown the spear aside as he rushed to her side. Once he was beside her though, he froze up. He didn't know what to do next. Erin, however, knew exactly what she needed. A few years ago, if she ever felt this sick pain, she'd have gone to her brother, thrown her face into his shoulder, and cried hysterically. She'd only stop after the water had run out and she had been left an exhausted shell. Well, she didn't have a brother anymore, so Noah was going to have to do.

She threw herself into his shoulder burying her face into his shoulder and letting him take a portion of this unbearable misery. For a minute, he stood there rigid, but then he softened, opening his stance a bit. She felt him pat her back awkwardly. Gradually, she felt the loneliness ease. She wasn't completely solitary in her new home. She had friends, Charlotte, Andy, Kasi, Quinn and even Shayna. And she had Noah, who somehow was bound to her in some even more intimate way, through this quest that they shared.

Erin pulled away after what seemed like a life time, wiping the wetness away from her face. She looked up into Noah's night eyes as they surveyed her wearily, waiting for her to take the lead. "I think I have to tell you something," Erin finally said, her voice sounding empty and course from the crying.

"Yeah, I think so too," Noah replied.

* * *

A/N So hi everyone. Sorry for taking a little while updating. I've sort of been really busy lately in real life. Any who, here's the next update, I really enjoyed writing this chapter, hope you all like it too.


	9. Chapter 9

Noah practically dragged Erin up the steps of the little empty shop in New Rome. He was going to get in so much trouble for this. If Hunter made him miss breakfast for accidentally knocking over a stack of spears, then when the Centurion found out about this Noah would never eat again. He didn't have any other choice though. He needed to talk with Erin now even if the timing kind of sort of sucked. He was just going to have to cross his fingers and hope that this wouldn't take too long.

He shoved open the heavy wooden door at the top of the steps and walked into the huge empty room behind it. It's not very exciting. There's a broken cabinet in the corner, but other than that it's empty. That is if you didn't count the occasional spiderweb clinging to the walls in the dark corners. There was one window, which was more like a sizable rectangular hole in the wall, opposite the wardrobe. It provided just enough light to be able to see, but not enough to illuminate everything. There were still plenty of dark crevices hiding, and that was just fine with Noah. Hopefully she wouldn't be able to see how awkward he felt in his features if she couldn't see him all that well.

"I don't think anyone's going to find us up here," Noah mumbled finally pausing to take a breath. He turned to look at Erin. Her eyes were still were still wet, red, and puffy from crying, but she looked more stable than she had earlier. She looked tired actually, like someone who had been to Hell and back and was just ready for things to end, to get better. He couldn't even find a hint of the girl who had been teasing him about pick pocketing the other day.

"I guess not," she said back. Her voice sounded hollow and hoarse from all of the crying. With a sigh she released his arm and walked over to the middle of the floor, and lied down on her back. The sun streaming through the window hit her forlorn face, making her seem even more depressed. Noah hesitated before walking over stiffly and sitting next to her, making sure that he was just out of reach from the patch of light on the ground.

"I grew up in the city," she started not bothering to wait for Noah to prompt her. "It was me, my mom,... and my brother." She exhaled the last word in a deep sigh, like she hadn't said it in a long time. "I was happy with them for a really long time. My brother and I were both home-schooled, so we didn't have any other friends. I was ok with that though. We were each others friends. We used to go out into the city while my mom was working and we'd steal things. He taught me how to pick pocket people without them noticing. I idolized him."

A small shadow of a nostalgic smile crept onto her face, as Noah squinted at her in disbelief. "Yup because that's what normal brother's do. Teach their little sisters how to pick pocket people," he muttered. She didn't hear him though, or pretended not to.

"Then during the summer when I was nine things changed. My mom had a fight with my brother. I didn't understand much about it. Just that it had to do with my dad, and that he had called her a liar. Then he disappeared for three months. My mom wasn't the same after that. She wouldn't complete her sentences, her eyes were never focused, she stopped smiling, it was bad. When he came back that September, but things were never the same again. He and my mom used to be really close. When he came back though, they didn't ever really talk. It was like he would walk into the room and pretend like it was just me in there, like my mom never existed. Then one day she took us out on one of her field trips to the park so that she could teach us about different kinds of minerals. While we were there something attacked us. One minute it was just a stray dog, next this huge beast thing has my mom between its teeth and my brother's got this gold sword out. He killed it, but not before it killed my mom," Erin paused and took a deep breath.

Noah pulls his legs to his chest and stares at her. He had never imagined that she had been through so much and he had a feeling that she wasn't even to the worst part yet. He had thought she was too care free to know real pain. Not that he'd ever felt real pain really, but he'd had his fair share of issues leaving his father and being one of the least liked kids in camp. He'd never lost his father though. He still received letters from the man at least once a month, sometimes more. Even if they hadn't seen each other face to face in years, Noah still had a father. But this girl. From the sound of things, she didn't have anyone. He couldn't even imagine that kind of loneliness.

"I'm sorry," he said because that was the only thing he could think of to say.

She smiled to herself though and shook her head. "No, its ok. I tell myself it was probably for the best you know? She was broken after my brother left us, and she was only getting worse. She didn't have to go through all that though," Erin muttered. She sighed. "I was sad for a little while, but after that it was sort of like my world opened up. My brother told me all about the gods and of course he told me who our father was. He showed me his sword, which was _Astriger_ by the way. That's where I had seen it before. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. We lived on the street again for a while. When we were hungry we would go steal really fancy cloths and show up to restaurants we couldn't afford. Then right before the check came we would run. After my mom died, we couldn't pay for the rent on our apartment, so we set up our own little fort in one of the alley ways. We should have been two destitute orphans on the streets, but we owned that city."

"When we started to get older though the monsters started coming more often. My brother had taught me how to fight to the best of his ability, but you can only really learn from Lupa. I was always weaker than him. About a year ago they got to be too much. You know how it is when demigods stay in one place for too long, the monsters start to know where to find you. So my brother told me about Lupa and Camp Jupiter. He said we'd be safe here. That's where he had been that summer he had disappeared at Lupa's. He said he was supposed to have gone to Camp Jupiter when Lupa let him go at the end of the summer, but he had come back home because he didn't want to leave me alone with my mom. Then my mom had apparently kept him from bringing me to Lupa's while she was alive. After she died though he was scared to leave the city again. But it was only a matter of time before we weren't able to fight them off anymore. So we left."

"On foot?" Noah interjected, his dark eyebrows raised in surprise. Not that he was an expert in geography, but he was pretty sure that Cincinnati wasn't all that close to Camp Jupiter.

"Yeah we didn't have money to buy bus tickets or anything else," Erin smiled.

"Sucks," Noah muttered sympathetically. She shrugged and kept talking.

"It took us about seven months to actually get to Lupa's. Neither of us were all that great with maps, and we actually started traveling in the wrong direction at first. Then we took a few detours to get around places that he had run into monsters before. By the time we got there, I thought I was pretty good at fighting, but you know Lupa proved me wrong pretty quick. She was pretty mad at my brother too for not going to Camp Jupiter right away, and she made things kind of rough for me. We were there for two months before Lupa decided I was ready to go. The rest of the trip here was a lot worse than the way to Lupa's."

Noah nodded. "Yeah monsters set themselves up in between Lupa's and the camp because they know a lot of demi-gods travel that path," he said.

"Yeah, that's what she told us. We figured though that since we had survived for basically like four years on our own we'd be okay. It was bad though. Every day we got into a different fight. Then we got off course and ended up at the coast too far North. It was on the way South from there that..." She swallowed and Noah leaned forward wanting to tell her that she didn't have to say anything else. He knew what happened. She'd arrived at Camp Jupiter alone and wounded after all. The thing was though that what she was about to say was supposed to be important. He had to know.

"We had been up for practically a week straight, and had found this isolated beach. We were tired and thought that we were safe. He told me he'd take first watch, but he fell asleep too," Erin said, her voice cracking. "I woke up and he was fighting this black figure in a mask. I wasn't even really all the way awake when he got speared through the stomach." New tears started to stream down her cheeks. Noah wasn't sure how to react. Quinn would probably sling his arm around her and tell her that everything was going to be ok, but how could he do that. Her brother was dead. Things were clearly not ok. "I grabbed my sword and started to chase after him, but he was already gone. _Astriger_ was gone too."

Noah's gut felt like a rock as he watched her cry. He felt guilty for having _Astriger_ now. He felt like he had basically stolen it from her dead brother's corpse. That's probably where his mother had gotten it after all. To think that he had been so annoyed with her the other day. Jeez he was a terrible person. Suddenly, he just had to do something to help her. For the first time, he wanted to be there for someone other than Quinn. Turning around slightly, he laid down beside her and put his hands on his stomach.

"My dad and I used to watch the stars just like this," he said positioning himself beside her and closing his eyes. In the darkness that the dimly lit room provided, he could almost pretend like he was back on their hill watching the sky. "When I left to go to Lupa's, it was night time. I thought that he was asleep and that I was going to sneak out without him seeing me. He caught me though. He was out back laying on the hill waiting for me to leave. He said that he knew I was going to go places, and that he wasn't going to be able to follow me there. I didn't really want to go places, but I couldn't stay. I used to always think that he just meant Camp Jupiter, and New Rome. But we're part of something big here. The gods don't just contact us. There must have been a reason that the gods let him die right? Like maybe I needed to have _Astriger_ so that you'd hear me out about what my mom told me. The gods have a plan for us. He can't have died in vain."

She smiled and shook her head. "It wasn't a monster that killed him though. It was a demi-god. I found the mask by Octavian's work station in the forge. Octavian had to have been behind the mask," she said her voice sounding emotionally drained and exhausted.

Noah felt his jaw drop slightly. Octavian was a Roman. No matter what you say, he was one of them. To kill another demi-god. That's the type of thing that the praetors would call a public beheading for. Its unforgivable- a crime that not even the most bitter of demi-gods would even consider committing. Treason was one thing, but murder? Yet how could he tell her that she was wrong. They already were suspected the kid of wrong doing, and she said that she'd seen him with the mask. That's solid proof.

"You think we should go to the praetors?" Noah asked quietly.

"No," she answered firmly. "I met my dad after my brother died. First he told me that I was probably going to die before I made it to Camp Jupiter. Then he said that I was going to go through a lot more pain before things, that I put my trust in anyone in an authority position. Actually, he said that weirdly, like it was really important. He probably meant Octavian, augur is an authority position. But I don't think we should go to them about it."

Noah fell silent for a minute letting the conversation rest. He glanced over at her. Her eyes were red and puffy, wet streaks ran down her cheeks, and water droplets were caught in her eyelashes. "What was his name?" Noah whispered quietly.

"Mitch," she said even quieter than he was. Noah bit his lip and looked away.

"Its getting late," Noah muttered checking at the sun in through the open window and sitting up. They had already been here too long. "I'll meet you tomorrow night on the hill ok? We'll talk about this more then. You need to get back before the Third starts on marching practice."

She sits up too and looks at him curiously. "What about you?"

"I've already left my station while on punishment. I might as well milk my free time for all I've got because I doubt I'm going to get that much in the near future," he said grimly.

They stand and he walked her to the door because it seemed like something a gentleman would do.

"Noah?" she paused quickly halfway out the door.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," she said. "For being a good listener."

Then she kissed him on the cheek and ran out, leaving him shocked with one hand raised dumbfounded to his face.

* * *

A/N So long time no update. I'm super sorry about that. I swear real life has been killing me lately. Somewhere in between holidays and midterm season sort of left me with very little personal time. Hopefully I'll get the next chapter up in a reasonable amount of time. Any who, hope you liked this chapter, and if you've got a minute leave a review :).


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